GIFT  OF 
SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN    MEYER  ELSASSER 
DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 
JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last 
date  stamped  below 


THE 

GREAT  MEANING 

OF 

METANOIA 

AN  UNDEVELOPED  CHAPTER 
IN  THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


A  NEW  EDITION 

WITH  A  SUPPLEMENTARY  ESSAY 

BY 

TREADWELL  WALDEN 


NEW-YORK 

THOMAS  WHITTAKER 
1896 


9  9  7  8  3 


Copyright,  1896, 
By  TRKADWELL  WALDEN. 


1ST 
S.O  0 


INSCRIBED 

WITH  DEVOTED   LOVE 
TO 

MY  WIFE, 
GRACE  GORDON  WALDEN. 


"233  CLARENDON  STREET, 
"BOSTON,  October  15,  1881. 

"  DEAR  WALDEN  :  I  have  just  read  your  '  Meta- 
noia '  through  from  beginning  to  end,  and  I  want 
to  tell  you  how  much  I  enjoyed  it,  and  how  much  I 
thank  you  for  sending  it  to  me. 

"  It  is  full  of  inspiration. 

"It  makes  one  think  of  Christian  faith  as  positive 
and  constructive,  and  not  merely  destructive  and 
remedial. 

"  It  makes  the  work  of  Christ  seem  worthy  of 
Christ. 

"  I  thank  you  truly,  both  for  writing  it  and  for 
giving  it  to  me. 

' '  Your  sincere  friend, 

"  PHILLIPS  BROOKS." 


PKEFACE. 

THE  first  of  these  Essays  appeared  in  the 
"  American  Church  Review  "  for  July,  1 88 1 
— following  the  memorable  day  in  May  when 
the  Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament 
was  issued.  The  paper  was  soon  afterwards 
reprinted  separately,  and  in  1882  was  put 
into  book  form  by  the  present  publisher. 

Although  its  point  was  made  timely  by  the 
revision,  and  by  the  astonishing  fact  that,  in 
a  work  expressly  undertaken  in  this  age  to 
correct  the  misapprehensions  of  a  former 
age,  a  mistranslation  involving  such  conse- 
quences had  been  overpassed  and  perpetu- 
ated, yet  the  Essay  did  not  set  out  to  be  a 
criticism  of  the  New  Version  in  this  particu- 
lar. It  could  not  help  falling  into  something 
like  it,  but  its  main  purpose  was  to  draw 
attention  to,  and  to  be  a  popular  exposition  of, 
a  word  in  whose  enormous  potentiality  of 
meaning  lay,  as  I  believed,  a  more  true  and 
more  catholic,  a  more  spiritual  and  more  philo- 


Preface. 

sophical,  interpretation  of  Christianity.  The 
Essay  could  have  done  as  well  for  this — with 
a  little  modification — if  the  revisers  had 
adopted  a  new  rendering  which  was,  in  any 
degree,  sympathetic  with  the  real  import  of 
the  original. 

As  such,  I  am  glad  to  say — after  the  nov- 
elty of  the  New  Version  had  passed — the 
Essay  seems  to  have  been  accepted :  simply 
as  an  exposition  in  itself,  that  might  at  any 
time  be  in  order;  and  as  a  contribution, 
called  for  under  the  circumstances,  to  the 
knowledge  and  the  spirit  which  ought  to  in- 
spire that  comprehensive  English  expression 
or  that  happy  combination  of  words — vary- 
ing according  to  their  connection  in  the  text 
— which  may  venture  sometime  hence  to 
represent  the  idea  of  Merdvoia ;  a  word  of 
whose  fullness,  in  its  initial  position,  the  New 
Testament  itself  can  be  the  only  adequate 
translation,  for,  in  that  initial  position,  it  is 
the  key-note  of  its  whole  strain. 

There  was  nothing  new  in  the  view  itself. 
If  there  had  been,  it  could  not  have  been 
true.  It  was  as  old  as  the  apostolic  age. 
And  the  revival  of  it  was  only  an  attempt  to 
uncover  and  clear  out  a  partially  choked  well. 


Preface. 

The  Greek  expression  lay  directly  under  the 
eye  of  any  reader  of  the  original,  manifestly 
opening  down  to  a  great  depth,  provided  his 
eye  was  disengaged  enough  from  preposses- 
sions to  be  alive  to  the  fact.  The  word  bore 
the  hint  of  what  it  was  on  its  very  face :  an 
intimation  that  the  whole  inward  nature  of 
man  was  appealed  to,  all  its  springs  of 
action,  all  its  possibilities  of  affection.  Every 
scholar  was  aware  of  its  literal  meaning — 
and  that  meaning  alone  was  in  itself  enough 
to  suggest  the  dropping  of  an  exploring 
plummet.  Why  this  was  not  done,  why 
what  was  so  obvious  was  overlooked,  per- 
haps the  second  Essay  may  explain. 

Neither  was  there  anything  new  in  the 
endeavor  to  recover  the  lost  meaning  of  the 
word.  There  had  been,  even  so  far  back  as 
the  remote  age  in  which  its  present  custom- 
ary curb  and  covering  had  first  been  imposed 
upon  it,  an  instinctive  misgiving  that  its  full 
depth  had  not  been  sounded.  But  the  mis- 
giving had  been  overborne  because  it  was 
not  pronounced  enough.  The  Reformation, 
also,  developed  a  restiveness  under  the  same 
ancient  limitation — for  mud,  as  well  as  water, 
was  being  drawn  up  now — but  the  restiveness 


Preface. 

wrought  no  real  purification,  because  it  was 
not  articulate  enough.  At  a  later  day — that 
is,  a  hundred  years  ago — an  orthodox  but 
independent  Scotchman,  Dr.  George  Camp- 
bell, exposed  the  whole  imposition  with 
startling  distinctness,  and  succeeded  so  well 
in  sweeping  the  fabric  away  that  many  since 
his  day — several  recent  translators  among 
them — owe  all  their  new  conception  of  the 
truth  to  him.  But  in  both  his  and  their 
contentment  with  the  substitute  "reforma- 
tion "  for  "  repentance  "  there  lay  an  implica- 
tion of  externalism,  which  betrayed,  appa- 
rently, a  lack  of  insight  into  the  spiritual  pro- 
fundity of  the  original  expression.  The  new 
rendering  did  not,  also,  popularly  prevail, 
though  pointing  to  the  practical  result  in  the 
life,  because  the  old  one,  though  falling  short 
of  the  whole  truth  ("  regeneration  "),  did  at 
}ast  reach  down  far  enough  to  stir  the  oft- 
stagnant  pool  of  the  conscience  and  the  heart. 
It  has  turned  out  that  the  absolute  insight 
into  the  meaning  of  the  word  has  in  our  own 
day  been  given  to  two  scholars  like  De 
Quincey  and  Matthew  Arnold,  and  has  found 
its  first  distinct  expression  through  them,  be- 
cause, unlike  all  that  have  gone  before  them, 


Preface. 

their  vision  was  unhampered  by  any  theo- 
logical preconception,  and  by  the  necessity 
of  looking  for  an  available  form  of  English 
translation.  It  was  simply  this  which  left 
their  powers  of  perception  clear ;  both  open- 
eyed  to  a  palpable  meaning,  and  free-handed 
in  their  statement  of  it.  But  they  did  not 
raise  a  signal-flag  over  the  fact  when  they 
found  it,  as  if  it  were  a  discovery,  nor  con- 
cern themselves  especially  in  identifying  the 
word  with  its  issues.  They  took  its  evident 
idea  as  a  matter  of  course,  recognized  it  as 
the  original  spring-head  of  the  Gospel,  re- 
stored it  to  its  natural  condition,  and  passed  on. 
Hence  their  brief  and  casual  allusions  to  it 
have  escaped  the  attention  that  was  their 
due. 

I  was  far  on  in  the  preparation  of  the  first 
Essay  before  I  ran  accidentally  upon  the 
passage  in  De  Quincey,  and  well  on  in  the 
second  before  I  came  as  accidentally  upon 
the  coincidence  with  it  and  yet  variation 
from  it  of  Matthew  Arnold — the  one  indicat- 
ing the  intellectual  sweep,  the  other  the 
ethical  depth  of  the  word ;  but  I  have  been 
glad  indeed  to  owe  to  them  both  an  encour- 
aging and  illumining  inspiration  in  the  en- 


Preface. 

deavor  to  show  that  the  principle  enunciated 
by  "  Metanoia  "  in  the  outset  of  the  Gospel 
was  profound  enough  to  be  the  underlying 
and  prevailing  idea  of  the  New  Testament 
from  beginning  to  end,  and  to  suggest  the 
application  of  its  interpretative  potency  to 
the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  apostles. 
And  this — the  most  obvious  thing  in  the 
world  to  do  when  once  on  the  track  of  it — 
is  all  that  appears  to  be  new. 

But  even  this  could  be  only  generally  and 
superficially  intimated  in  a  review  article. 
Still,  such  as  it  was,  the  idea  was  a  surprise 
and  even  a  revelation  to  many  people.  And 
there  have  been  indications  enough  that  it 
has  since  taken  a  wide  hold.  I  do  not  re- 
ceive this  impression  only  from  the  many 
earnest  letters  and  other  like  evidences  which 
have  come  to  me,  or  from  an  occasional  ref- 
erence in  a  recent  commentary  or  expository 
paper,  but  from  the  fact  that  the  view  seems 
to  have  entered  largely  into  pulpit  teaching 
and  current  thought.  It  has  been  made  the 
theme  of  many  sermons,  and  it  has  given 
occasion  to  a  number  of  printed  essays  and 
magazine  articles,  several  even  of  a  philo- 
sophical character.  The  word  "  Metanoia  " 


Preface. 

itself  has  also  become  quite  a  familiar  Eng- 
lish expression,  not  only  for  what  it  really 
means,  but,  I  fear,  in  some  cases  where  an 
ignorant  enthusiasm  has  laid  hold  of  it,  for 
what  it  cannot  be  understood  to  mean. 

It  has  been  made  the  ground,  however,  of 
one  interesting  suggestion,  by  a  writer  in  the 
"  Popular  Science  Monthly,"  who  has  copi- 
ously quoted  the  Essay,  that  the  term  "  Met- 
agnostic  " — or,  better,  the  words  "  Metanos- 
tic  "  and  "  Metanoetic  " — should  displace  the 
idea  conveyed  by  "  Agnostic,"  as  expressing 
positively,  affirmatively,  and  hopefully,  in 
stead  of  negatively  and  despairingly,  the  at- 
titude even  of  the  purely  scientific  mind  in 
the  presence  of  the  Unknown.  The  sugges- 
tion, it  seems,  failed  with  Mr.  Huxley,  when 
presented  to  him,  because  a  slight  inaccuracy 
in  the  statement  of  the  primary  force  of  the 
proposed  words  gave  him  an  opportunity  to 
evade  it ;  but  the  idea  has,  however,  gone 
far  enough  into  usage  to  bring  about  the  in- 
troduction of  "  Metagnostic,"  with  this  sig- 
nification, in  the  "  Century  Dictionary." 

It  is  all  this  and  the  like  of  it  that  has 
kept  the  memory  of  the  Essay  afloat  these 


Preface. 

fourteen  years  and  more,  that  has  caused  a 
continual  inquiry  for  it,  and  that  has  now 
led  to  its  reissue,  after  being  long  out  of 
print. 

In  publishing  it  again  I  ought  to  say  that 
I  have  gone  over  the  whole  ground  with 
much  thorough  and  painstaking  study,  and 
have  verified  all  its  positions  so  satisfactorily 
that  I  have  seen  no  reason  to  change  any  of 
them.  Indeed,  so  largely  and  variously  has 
the  subject  opened  and  enriched  itself,  both 
in  its  Scriptural  illustration  and  its  practical 
application,  that  the  present  little  volume 
seems  to  stand  yet  only  on  the  threshold  of 
the  whole  contemplation.  But  I  have  been 
under  an  exigency  of  brevity  in  bringing  it 
out,  and  can  only  hope  that  it  may  serve  its 
purpose  as  an  introduction,  if  no  more. 

The  book  has  fallen  into  a  threefold  form : 
first,  the  original  Essay,  slightly  retouched 
and  with  a  few  notes  added ;  second,  a  Sup- 
plementary Essay,  mainly  to  supply  a  strong 
point  of  view  in  which  the  other  was  neces- 
sarily lacking,  but  incidentally  including  such 
further  intimations  of  the  bearing  of  "  Meta- 
noia"  as  could  be  thrown  out  by  the  way ;  and 
third,  a  group  of  selected  comments  upon 


Preface. 

the  subject  by  different  distinguished  hands 
— five  of  them  revisers — to  show  that  I  do 
not  stand  alone  in  my  estimate  of  its  neces- 
sity and  importance. 

The  last  in  the  list  of  these — by  no  means 
the  least — is  Phillips  Brooks.  I  have  also 
set  the  whole  of  the  opening  part  of  his  note 
to  me  in  the  forefront  of  this  new  edition, 
partly  under  an  impulse  of  personal  affection, 
partly  because  of  the  comprehensiveness  and 
force  of  what  he  wrote.  He  was  my  cher- 
ished friend  for  thirty  years,  a  pride  and  de- 
light to  me  as  I  saw  him  advancing  in  the 
strength  of  the  breadth  and  depth  of  the 
truth  he  proclaimed,  and  under  the  blessing 
which  attended  a  pure,  a  noble,  and  a  de- 
voted life.  In  these  few  words,  out  of  his 
very  heart,  he  seized  with  characteristic  in- 
sight the  vital  point  of  the  whole  considera- 
tion, and  they  are  of  that  very  quality  in 
thought,  conviction,  and  expression  which 
was  the  secret  of  his  power  both  as  a  preacher 
and  as  a  man.  In  the  midst  of  the  concen- 
tric circles  drawn  round  the  mark,  as  it  was 
also  recognized  by  the  others  that  I  have 
quoted,  he  thus  laid  his  ringer  upon  the  cen- 
tral white: — 


Preface. 

"  It  makes  one  think  of  Christian  faith  as 
positive  and  constructive,  and  not  merely 
destructive  and  remedial. 

"  It  makes  the  work  of  Christ  seem  worthy 
of  Christ." 

In  that  he  said  all. 

T.  W. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS., 
December,  1895. 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAY   I. 

THE  GREAT  MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  METANOIA : 
LOST  IN  THE  OLD  VERSION,  UNRECOVERED  IN  THE 
NEW. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  New  Testament  Idea  of  Metanoia. . .       i 
II.    "Metanoia"  Mistranslated  "Repentance"     13 

III.  The  Intellectual  as  well  as  Moral  Compass 

of  Metanoia 31 

IV.  The  Inaugural  Action  of  Metanoia  in  the 

First  Age 45 

V.    Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teach- 
ing        60 

VI.    The  Metanoia  of  St.  Paul— Faith  and  Re- 
newal        71 

VII.    Metanoia  the  Word  of  Christ  to  the  Pres- 
ent Age 83 

NOTE. — The  View  of  Matthew  Arnold  . .     91 
xvii 


Contents. 


ESSAY  II. 

THE   ECLIPSE   OF   METANO1A   BY   PCENITENTIA. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    An  Impossible  Expedient  to  End  it :  "Re- 
pentance "  to  be  Made  to  Mean  Meta- 

noia 95 

II.    Merdiwa  Transfigured  Greek 100 

III.  "Repentance"  Persistent  Latin 108 

IV.  The  Roman  Utilization  of  "Repentance  "  117 
V.    The  Gospel  in  the  Shadow  of  the  Law ..  123 

VI.    "Disastrous  Twilight"  in  the  Revised 

Version  130 

VII.    The  Power  of  Latin  Prescription 139 

VIII.    The  True  Interpretation  145 


ASSENTING   WITNESSES. 

A  Word  Introductory 152 

The  Comments  of : 
I.   The  Right  Rev.  Brooke  Foss  Westcott, 

D.D.,  D.C.L 153 

II.   The  Rev.  Professor  Alexander  Roberts, 

D.D 154 

III.   The  Rev.  Howard  Crosby,  D.D.,  LL.D.   155 
xviii 


Contents. 

LETTER  PAGE 

IV.  The  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D..  156 

V.  The  Very  Rev.  E.  H.  Plumptre,  D.D. .  156 

VI.    The  Rev.  Edward  White 157 

VII.  The   Rev.   Professor  Alexander  V.   G. 

Allen,  D.D 158 

VIII.  The  Rev.  Professor  J.  F.  Garrison,  D.D.  160 

IX.   The  Rev.  Elisha  Mulford,  LL.D 163 

X.    The  Rev.  Edward  T.  Bartlett,  D.D 163 

XI.  The  Rev.  Benjamin  Franklin,  D.D....  165 

XII.  The  Right  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D.  .  166 


I  AM  COME  A  LIGHT  INTO  THE  WORLD, 

THAT    WHOSOEVER     BELIEVETH     ON     ME 
MAY   NOT  ABIDE   IN   THE   DARKNESS. 

John  xii.  46. 


THE  GREAT  MEANING  OF  THE 
WORD  METANOIA:  LOST  IN  THE 
OLD  VERSION,  UNRECOVERED 
IN  THE  NEW. 

I. 

THE    NEW    TESTAMENT    IDEA    OF    METANOIA. 

METANOIA  is  the  Greek  word— and  let- 
ter for  letter  an  English  one,  if  we  desire  it 
— which  bears  the  sublime  burden  of  the 
original  proclamation  of  the  gospel. 

It  represents  the  first  utterance  of  John 
the  Baptist  as  the  herald  of  the  Christ,  and 
the  first  utterance  of  Jesus  the  Christ  as  the 
herald  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  was  their 
summons  to  mankind,  preceding  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  power  that  was  approach- 
ing, of  the  revelation  that  was  at  hand. 

If  we  recur  to  the  image  involved  in  the 
words  "herald,"  "  proclamation" — the  image 
implied  in  the  narrative — it  was  the  note  of 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

a  trumpet  outside  the  walls,  and  the  call  of 
a  messenger  to  open  the  gates. 

In  order  the  better  to  get  at  its  meaning, 
let  us  now  imagine  some  one  who  has  never 
read  the  English  New  Testament,  and  who 
has  had  no  especial  bias  given  to  his  ideas 
by  any  theological  system.  All  we  will  sup- 
pose for  him  is  a  knowledge  of  Greek  and 
a  spiritual  instinct  which  will  enable  him  to 
rise  into  the  frequent  transcendental  mean- 
ing of  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament. 

He  knows  enough  to  know  that  he  is  deal- 
ing with  the  record  of  a  divine  revolution  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  and  that  the  human  lan- 
guage to  which  the  account  was  committed 
is  struggling  to  utter  adequately  the  depth  of 
inspiration  behind  it. 

He  knows  that  the  record  was  committed 
to  writing  only  after  the  bearings  of  the  his- 
tory were  fully  understood  and  the  concep- 
tion of  its  meaning  was  fully  matured. 

He  knows  that  what  is  before  him  is  a  con- 
densation as  to  events,  and  a  translation  as 
to  ideas ;  in  other  words,  if  we  confine  the  re- 
mark to  the  four  gospels,  that  the  historical 
part  is  as  brief  as  it  is  profound,  and  that 
2 


The  New  Testament  Idea  of  Metdnoia. 

the  doctrinal  part  is  not  only  briefly  and  pro- 
foundly expressed,  but  was  transferred  to  the 
Greek  from  the  Aramaic  vernacular  in  which 
it  was  at  first  expansively  spoken. 

He  is  prepared,  therefore,  to  see  not  only 
a  representative  depth  in  each  event,  but, 
especially,  a  comprehensive  force  in  every 
cardinal  word. 

In  the  very  outset  of  the  life  of  Christ  he 
comes  upon  the  word  "  Metanoia,"  and  in  a 
connection  which  gives  it  the  all-prominent 
place.  He  takes  in  the  significance  of  its 
position  at  once.  It  conveys  the  summons 
of  the  herald,  and  of  the  herald  who  was 
freighted  with  the  good  news  which  the  whole 
New  Testament  afterwards  unfolds.  Here  in 
epitome,  he  naturally  thinks,  must  be  all  the 
"  Upward  Calling"  of  God.  No  word,  there- 
fore, in  the  New  Testament  can  be  greater 
than  this. 

Hence  he  must  interpret  it  as  a  condensed 
expression  of  what  was  originally  said  in 
large,  and  as  an  expression,  also,  which  was 
fixed  upon  long  after  the  event,  when  every- 
thing was  understood,  as  the  fit  one  to  carry 
the  great  burden.  If  this  is  its  anticipatory 
3 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

reach,  if  this  is  its  heralding  grasp,  he  natu- 
rally sets  about  inquiring  what  is  its  history 
and  what  its  elementary  weight. 

When  we  imagine  such  a  fresh  reader  of 
the  Greek  Testament  as  this  we  place  our- 
selves in  the  situation  to  pursue  his  inquiry. 

The  literal  meaning  of  "  Metanoia,"  or, 
rather,  the  nearest  expression  to  it  in  English, 
is  "  Change  of  Mind,"  a  phrase  too  much  worn 
by  familiar  use  to  be  available  as  a  render- 
ing, but  an  idea  capable  of  many  equivalent 
variations  in  the  English  tongue.  It  will  be 
more  convenient,  however,  for  our  present 
purpose  to  employ  the  phrase  as  if  its  native 
force  had  not  been  thus  impaired. 

What  word  is  more  expressive  than 
"  Change  "?  what  more  comprehensive  than 
"Mind"? 

"  Change,"  in  the  radical  sense  we  here 
intend,  when  applied  to  the  "mind,"  ought  to 
suggest  something  hardly  short  of  a  trans- 
mutation ;  not  of  essence,  of  course,  but  of 
consciousness.  We  understand  by  a  change 
of  place  the  occupation  of  another  place ; 
a  change  of  condition,  another  condition  ;  a 
4 


77/<?  New  Testament  Idea  of  Metdnoia. 

change  of  form,  another  form.  We  can  ima- 
gine the  otherwise  unchangeable  man  under- 
going, in  like  manner,  a  "  Change  of  Mind  "  ; 
what  Coleridge  coined  the  word  "  transmenta- 
tion  "  to  express :  a  sort  of  mental  transfigura- 
tion, under  which  the  Mind,  when  placed  in  a 
new  situation,  thinks  new  thoughts,  receives 
new  impressions,  forms  new  tastes,  inclina- 
tions, purposes,  develops  new  aptitudes ;  such 
a  Change  may  be  good  or  evil,  but  such  a 
change  is  possible. 

For  what  is  the  "Mind"?  It  is  that 
spiritual  part  of  us  which  receives  and  assim- 
ilates whatever  it  has  an  affinity  for  in  the 
world  outside,  whether  that  world  be  spiritual 
or  material.  It  is  the  whole  group  of  facul- 
ties which  compose  the  intelligence.  It  is 
sight  and  perception,  thought  and  reflection, 
apprehension  and  comprehension — all  that 
is  popularly  known  as  the  intellect  or  under- 
standing. But  it  also  embraces  more  than 
this,  namely,  a  large  portion  of  the  moral  and 
affectional  nature.  It  occupies  the  realm  of 
the  heart.  Thus  it  comes  about  that,  in  com- 
mon speech,  the  terms  "  mind  "  and  "  heart " 
are  often  interblended,  one  overlapping  the 
5 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

field  of  the  other.  We  speak  of  the  heart  as 
if  it  were  the  thinking  principle.  It  has  its 
thoughts  as  well  as  its  affections.  We  also 
speak  of  the  mind  as  if  it  had  feelings  as 
well  as  perceptions.  The  will,  too,  seems  to 
be  as  much  at  home  in  one  as  in  the  other. 
What  the  mind  fancies  it  will  do,  it  shortly 
resolves  to  do,  is  minded  to  do.  What  the 
mind  also  fastens  its  attention  upon,  it  shortly 
fastens  its  love  upon.  We  love  with  the 
whole  mind  as  well  as  with  the  whole  heart, 
soul,  an'd  strength. 

When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  the  Mind, 
we  often  mean  the  heart  as  well  as  the  brain, 
but  we  never  mean  the  heart  without  the 
brain.  The  Mind  proper  is  the  masculine, 
intellectual  element,  strong  and  foremost,  of 
which  the  heart  is  the  feminine,  affectional 
counterpart,  always  in  attendance  upon  it,  al- 
ways at  one  with  it.  As  "  Man  "  is  the  generic 
name  for  Adam  and  Eve,  so  "  Mind  "  is  the 
generic  name  for  this  twofold  nature  of  man.1 

When,  then,  "  Mind  "  means  so  much,  and 
"  Change  "  may  be  made  to  mean  so  much, 

1  It  may  be  well  to  remember  that  "man"  and 
"  mind  "  are  etymologically  the  same.     A  change  of 
the  Mind,  therefore,  is  a  change  of  the  Man. 
6 


The  New  Testament  Idea  of  Metdnoia. 

to  speak  of  a  "  Change  of  Mind  "  is  to  stand 
on  the  verge  of  a  great  conception. 

Now  we  are  introduced  into  the  fullness  of 
the  Greek  word  "  Metanoia."  Nous  is  the 
precise  equivalent  of  "  Mind."  It  is  intellect, 
first  and  foremost,  but  it  is  intellect  inter- 
blended,  in  its  action,  with  the  nature  behind 
it.  There  is  no  mystic  partition  dividing  the 
one  from  the  other.  It  is  the  whole  soul. 
It  is  Mind,  first,  in  the  sense  of  perception, 
knowledge,  thought.  It  is  Mind,  next,  in  the 
sense  of  feeling,  disposition,  will.  And  Nous 
is  the  body  of  the  word  "  Metanoia."  Metd  is 
a  preposition  which,  when  compounded  with 
Nous,  means  after.1  Metanoia  is  the  After- 
Mind  :  perception,  knowledge,  thought,  feel- 
ing, disposition,  will,  afterwards.  The  Mind 
has  entered  upon  a  new  stage,  upon  some- 
thing beyond.  If  the  prefix  were/r<?,  "  Pro- 
noia  "  would  mean  perception  before,  thought 
before,  a  state  of  mind  before  experience. 
But  Metanoia  is  a  state  of  mind  after  experi- 

1  "After"  in  such  a  connection,  denotes  the  idea 
of  change  or  transformation,  ffoeu,  to  see,  to  per- 
ceive. Mrravo&j,  to  see  or  perceive  afterwards. 
Hence,  to  change  one's  view. 

7 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metanoia. 

ence ;  the  mental  condition  which  has  devel- 
oped itself  after  an  entirely  new  set  of  cir- 
cumstances has  encompassed  and  invaded 
the  consciousness. 

Metd,  therefore,  introduces  the  Mind  in 
the  act  of  progress,  a  "  change  "  taking  place 
either  by  evolution  or  by  revolution ;  devel- 
opment through  any  cause  or  in  any  form, 
when  the  Mind  is  operated  upon  by  consid- 
erations within  or  by  conditions  without.1 

In  this  statement  of  the  capacity  of  the 

l  A  lay  friend,  after  this  paper  was  written,  sent 
us  the  following :  ' '  The  force  of  Metd  is  clearly  this, 
viz.,  '  end  for  end,'  or  '  in  the  opposite  direction,'  or 
'  anew.'  .  .  .  For  the  root  of  Metd  is  the  English 
'mid,'  and  Metd  is  at  bottom  the  English  'amid.' 
From  this  idea  (one  of  situation)  it  progresses  to 
another  idea  of  direction;  and  in  this  use  it  has  the 
sense  of  '  going  right  against,'  in  the  sense  of  '  strik- 
ing fair  and  square,'  or  '  right  in  the  middle.'  Thus 
it  gets  the  meaning  of  '  oppositeness  of  direction,'1  and 
its  force  in '  Metanoia '  is  to  show  that  the  action  of  the 
mind  is  now  to  be  precisely  in  the  opposite  direction 
to  what  was  before  the  case.  ...  I  strongly  wish  I 
could  provoke  you  to  examine  the  word  '  Metanoia ' 
philologically.  In  its  philology  lie  many  truths. 
Noia  appears  to  be  a  worn-down  form  for  gnoia 
(compare  agnoia,  not  anoia),  and  the  root  seems  to 
be  gen,  meaning  to  beget,  produce,  or,  as  we  say, 
8 


The  Neiu  Testament  Idea  of  Metdnoia. 

word  we  are  drawing  upon  the  literal  ele- 
ments of  the  compound  exhaustively.  We 
are  obliged  to  do  this  because,  as  in  the  case 
of  many  other  cardinal  words  in  the  New 
Testament,  we  cannot  fall  back  upon  its 
classical  use  for  its  scriptural  definition.  In 
the  former  it  was  often  as  weak  an  expres- 
sion as  our  own  "  change  of  mind,"  and  was 
employed  in  very  much  the  same  superficial 
way.  It  meant  a  change  of  perception,  of 
opinion,  of  purpose,  of  feeling,  in  ordinary 
affairs,  with  the  natural  consequence,  some- 
times, of  a  change  of  action.  It  was  a  cur- 
rent expression  for  any  alteration  of  mind  or 
view,  and  for  whatever  retrospective  emotion 
might  attend  the  fact. 

Its  scriptural  definition  comes  to  us  under 
very  grand  circumstances ;  the  word  is  made 

conceive.  From  the  same  root  is  gennao,  to  beget. 
Noia  (genoia)  is  the  begetting,  shaping,  or  production 
of  anything  in  the  inner  and  mental  world;  thus  all 
the  operations  or  creations  of  the  mind.  The  Latin 
gigno,  genitor,  gnosco,  English  '  knows,'  are  all  from 
this  root.  The  use  of  getting  back  to  this  philological 
meaning  is  to  apply  '  Metanoia '  to  all  the  operations 
of  the  mind,  whether  of  wish,  thought,  or  action, 
will,  understanding,  life." 
9 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

over  and  enlarged  by  its  environment,  as  if 
it  had  been  reinspired  and  been  born  anew. 
We  are  compelled  to  seek  its  meaning  in  the 
abstract,  native  force  of  the  compound  as 
thus  vivified  by  the  situation  in  which  we 
find  it.  Its  history  in  this  respect  is  that  of 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament. 

When  the  Greek  language,  released  by 
the  conquests  of  Alexander  the  Great,  three 
centuries  and  more  before  the  Christian  era, 
spread  over  the  known  world  and  became  the 
universal  language,  its  forms,  constructions, 
and  meanings  met  with  curious  modifica- 
tions as  it  came  in  contact  with  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  countries  it  had  invaded. 
When  in  time  it  struck  the  Hebrew  mind 
and  religion  at  Alexandria  the  Septuagint 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament  rose  gradu- 
ally into  being ;  but  in  the  act  of  reexpress- 
ing  "ideas  and  principles  so  entirely  out  of 
the  range  of  the  Greek  imagination,  even 
that  perfect  and  elaborate  tongue  mounted 
to  a  level  and  breathed  an  atmosphere  it 
had  never  occupied  before.  It  took,  in 
many  instances,  a  new  color,  a  new  charac- 
ter. There  could  have  been  no  other  result 
when  the  wealth  of  divine  revelation  and  of 

10 


The  Arew  Testament  Idea  of  Metdnoia. 

the  story  of  the  only  true  religion  was  com- 
mitted for  recoinage  to  the  exquisite  resources 
of  such  a  mint.  It  was  now  the  "much-re- 
fined gold  "  receiving  the  stamp  of  the  current 
common  coin,  but  imparting  to  it  a  hitherto 
unknown  value.  Familiar  words  began  to 
ring  with  a  strange  quality.1 

If  this  was  so,  nearly  three  centuries  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  how  must  it  have 
been  when  there  came  such  a  revelation  to 
put  into  words,  and  such  a  revolution  to  put 
on  record,  as  were  ushered  in  with  the  Chris- 
tian religion?  Upon  the  Greek  language, 
again,  fell  the  burden  of  the  new  Scriptures, 
and  this  time,  not  by  translation,  but  by 

1  The  Septuagint  represents  only  a  half-way  step 
in  this  assignment  of  the  Greek  language  to  the  ex- 
pression of  Hebrew  ideas.  "  The  Seventy  prepared 
the  way  in  Greek,"  says  Cremar,  in  his  Preface  to  his 
"  Biblico-theological  Lexicon,"  "  for  the  New  Testa- 
ment proclamation  of  saving  truth.  Fine  as  is  their 
tact,  it  must  be  allowed  that  their  language  differs 
from  that  of  the  New  Testament  as  the  well-meant 
and  painstaking  effort  of  the  pupils  differs  from  the 
renewing  and  creative  hand  of  the  master."  This 
shows  itself  in  a  less  definite  use  of  "  Metdnoia" 
than  in  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is  absolute. 
II 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

direct  inspiration.  The  pagan  tongue  had  to 
wreathe  itself  into  new  phraseologies  in  order 
to  give  what  utterance  it  could  to  ideas  well- 
nigh  unutterable.  Words  which  had  passed 
colloquially  from  mouth  to  mouth  in  the 
cities  of  Greece,  words  which  were  current  in 
every-day  speech  everywhere  in  the  world, 
some  whose  meanings  had  never  before  been 
profound,  others  whose  usage  had  worn  them 
thin,  now  rose  into  a  significance  so  powerful 
and  so  sacred  that  they  could  only  be  used 
as  temple-money  by  all  ages  to  come.  Ex- 
pressions conveying  a  divine  meaning,  now 
most  familiar  to  us,  were  occasions  of  aston- 
ishment to  pagan  and  Jew  alike  when  they 
were  lifted  into  connections  which  transfig- 
ured them.  Such,  we  know,  were  "faith," 
"hope,"  "love,"  "light,"  "truth,"  "life," 
"  peace,"  "  liberty  "  ;  such  were  "  redemp- 
tion," "atonement,"  "righteousness,"  "resur- 
rection " ;  such  were  "  Saviour  "  and  "  apos- 
tle," and  many  more  which  might  be  named. 
And  such  was  "  Metanoia."  So  great  as 
this  was  what  Schleiermacher  calls  "  the  lan- 
guage-moulding power  of  Christianity." 


II. 


METANOIA  "     MISTRANSLATED         REPEN- 
TANCE." 

WHEN  "  Metanoia  "  was  taken  up  into  the 
uses  of  the  New  Testament  it  came  to  mean, 
according  to  Archbishop  Trench,  "that 
mighty  change  in  mind,  heart,  and  life, 
wrought  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  we  call 
repentance"  * 

"Which  we  call  repentance" \  What  a 
diminuendo  in  the  statement  is  here!  The 
swelling  note  suddenly  gives  up  its  breath 
and  subsides  into  this!  It  is  we,  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  he  says,  who  call  that 
"mighty  change"  "repentance" 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  rendering  of  it 
in  our  English  Bible,  and  the  accredited  ex- 
pression for  it  in  all  theological  literature. 

1  See  Trench's  "  Synonyms  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment," p.  241,  sec.  Ixix. 

13 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metanoia. 

Here,  now,  we  come  upon  the  practical 
and  all-important  point  of  this  inquiry.  For, 
putting  these  words,  "  Metanoia  "  and  "  re- 
pentance" side  by  side,  what  a  radical  diver- 
gency there  is  between  them! 

We  are  supposing  the  reader  to  be  look- 
ing at  the  two  with  a  perfectly  fresh  and  un- 
sophisticated perception.  He  already  knows 
what  the  Greek  "  Metanoia  "  etymologically 
means ;  let  us  now  remind  him  what  the  Latin 
"  repentance  "  etymologically  means.  In  its 
primary  sense  it  fails  to  come  anywhere  near 
the  other. 

Its  central  idea  is  the  idea  of  pcenitentia, 
from  pcena,  pain ;  suffering  in  view  of  being 
liable  to  punishment ;  hence  grief  over  an  act 
for  which  satisfaction  might  be  demanded. 

It  would  be  fair  to  allow  it  also  a  secon- 
dary signification ;  suffering  in  view  of  the 
badness  of  the  act  itself,  without  regard  to 
its  consequences. 

The  prefix  re,  back  or  again,  adds  to  this 
the  idea  of  looking  back,  or  looking  again, 
with  sorrow  upon  what  has  been  done  amiss. 

The  word  thus  intensively  communes  with 
the  past,  and  represents  an  emotion  only. 
This  may  be  produced  by  a  Change  of 
14 


"Metanoia  "  Mistranslated   ''Repentance." 

Mind,  and  it  may  have  influence  in  produc- 
ing a  Change  of  Mind.  It  may  be  poten- 
tially equal  to  amendment  of  life,  but  it  is 
forcing  the  word  to  put  even  that  meaning 
into  it,  and  more  than  forcing  is  necessary 
to  make  it  "  express  that  mighty  Change  in 
mind,  heart,  and  life,  wrought  by  the  Spirit 
of  God,"  which  Archbishop  Trench  admits 
is  the  meaning  of  "  Metanoia." 

At  the  best  it  can  only  hang  on  the  skirts 
of  the  great  Greek  expression,  for  that  means 
a  movement  of  the  whole  mind  forwards,  to 
which  a  looking  backwards  is  only  incidental. 
Metanoia  embraces  any  consideration  which 
may  cause  the  Mind  to  "change."  It  implies 
the  whole  circle  of  influences,  repentance 
among  them,  which  may  affect  or  mould  the 
Mind.  It  necessarily  brings  about  repentance 
as  one  of  the  results  of  its  operation,  but  it 
brings  about  renewal  of  life  as  the  great  re- 
sult of  all. 

In  saying  this  we  do  not  intend  to  ignore 
the  office  of  repentance  in  its  strict  sense, 
nor  to  put  that  all-necessary  conviction  of 
sin  which  characterizes  the  Christian  religion 
in  any  indirect  relation  to  the  Christian  life. 
15 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

We  are  only  questioning  the  word  as  a  ren- 
dering of  "  Metanoia  "  ;  as  representing  sim- 
ply an  emotion,  not  intellection  in  any  way. 
J'ar  back  in  the  heart  is  the  capacity  for 
that  emotion  shut  up,  awaiting  its  proper 
occasions.  We  cannot  conceive  of  its  com- 
ing into  activity  unless  the  Mind  has  been 
already  engaged,  but  we  can  conceive  of  the 
Mind  being  full  of  many  processes,  involv- 
ing Change  of  thought  or  purpose  or  feeling, 
wherein  it  has  not  been  concerned  at  all. 
In  this  lies  its  first  palpable  incompetency  to 
represent  so  comprehensive  a  word. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  it  has  been  given  a 
signification,  theologically,  which  bears  it  into 
all  that  is  equivalent  to  a  Change  of  Mind, 
and,  even  further  than  that,  to  amendment 
of  life.  It  has,  we  are  told,  this  recognized 
meaning  among  all  evangelical  authorities, 
and  is  so  understood  by  all  practical  Chris- 
tians. If  this  were  really  so,  and  it  had  so 
burst  the  chrysalis  of  its  etymology  as  to  float 
in  our  consciousness  arbitrarily  and  absolutely 
for  as  much  as  this,  even  then  it  were  imprac- 
ticable to  make  it  compass  what  is  meant  by 
"  Metanoia  "  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
16 


"Metdnoia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance." 

common  uses  of  language  drag  it  down.  It 
cannot  sustain  itself  at  such  a  height.  Not 
only  are  the  meshes  of  its  origin  inseparable 
from  it,  but  it  is  too  much  in  the  web  of 
popular  speech.  No  word  is  used  more 
loosely  even  by  theologians,  except  among 
very  careful  precisians.  It  slips  out  every- 
where in  untechnical  connections.  It  will 
back  to  its  vernacular  use.  It  will  emerge 
from  the  popular  dictionary,  in  its  native 
and  simple  meaning,  the  richest  and  weighti- 
est of  all  its  familiar  sisterhood  of  synonyms, 
to  give  force  to  the  diction  when  sorrow  of 
a  godly  kind  is  meant.  Even  in  the  Prayer- 
book  it  is  convertibly  employed  with  "peni- 
tence" and  there  is  every  indication  that  there 
nothing  more,  or  not  a  great  deal  more,  is 
intended  by  it.1 

l  A  few  instances,  in  the  Prayer-book,  not  only  of 
the  synonymous  use  of  "penitence"  and  "repen- 
tance," but  also  of  their  distinction  from  "  amendment 
of  life  "  :  In  the  General  Confession :  "  Restore  Thou 
those  who  axe  penitent,  according  to  Thy  promises." 
In  the  larger  Absolution:  "  Declare  and  pronounce, 
.  .  .  being  penitent.  .  .  .  Wherefore  .  .  .  grant  us 
true  repentance."  In  the  shorter  Absolution : ' ' Prom- 
ised forgiveness  of  sins  to  all  those  who,  with  hearty 
repentance  and  true  faith,  turn  unto  Him."  In  the 
17 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

It  has  proved  too  strong  and  full  for  this 
in  the  penitential  atmosphere  of  the  Christian 
life  to  be  parted  with  for  advanced  dogmat- 
ical purposes  only.  Hence  an  element  of 
confusion  which  robs  it  of  dogmatical  force. 

But  there  is  another.  In  the  Authorized 
Version  we  find  it  varying  about  in  a  way  that 
requires  often  considerable  spiritual  discern- 
ment to  tell  where  it  stands  for  "  Metanoia," 
and  where  it  does  not;  for  there  is  another 
word,  "  Metameleia," l  which  exactly  means 
repentance  in  its  strict  sense,  and  is  also  so 

Litany :  "  Give  us  true  repentance,  and  endue  us  with 
grace  to  amend  our  lives.''''  Collect  for  Ash  Wednes- 
day: "  Dost  forgive  the  sins  of  all  those  who  are 
penitent,  create  and  make  in  us  new  and  contrite 
hearts."  Third  Ash  Wednesday  prayer:  "Who 
meekly  acknowledge  our  vileness,  and  truly  repent 
us  of  our  faults."  In  the  Communion  Exhortations  : 
"  If  with  a  truejfo7«'te«£  heart  .  .  .  repent  ye  truly  for 
your  sins  past,  have  a  lively  and  steadfast  faith,  .  .  . 
amend  your  lives.'1'1  "  Ye  who  do  truly  repent .  .  .  and 
intend  to  lead  a  new  life."  In  the  Confession  :  "  We 
acknowledge  and  bewail,  etc.  .  .  .  We  do  earnestly 
repent  and  are  heartily  sorry."  In  the  Family 
Prayer:  "Give  them  repentance  and  better  minds" 
etc. 

1  Only  the  verb  is  used  in  the  New  Testament. 
18 


"Metanoia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance." 

rendered.  This  variation  occurs  frequently 
enough  to  make  us  wonder  whether  the  trans- 
lators attached  any  distinct  doctrinal  signifi- 
cance to  it  at  all ;  and  we  might  also  be  par- 
doned for  wondering  whether  they  were  fully 
aware  of  the  unique  value  of  "  Metanoia " 
wherever  they  found  it.1 

When  the  English  Scriptures  themselves 
do  not  make  a  distinction  it  can  hardly  be 
expected  that  theological  formularies  will  suc- 

1  What  are  we  to  think,  for  instance,  when  we  read 
that  Judas  "  repented  himself  "  (wra//e/l^e<f) ;  or  how 
vivid  must  the  peculiar  sense  of  Metanoia — even  the 
admitted  one — have  been  in  minds  which  could  dis- 
miss the  following  passage  to  be  "  understanded  of 
the  people"? 

"  For  though  I  made  you  sorry  with  a  letter,  I  do 
not  repent  {jiera/j.e^ofj,at],  though  I  did  repent  [fiera- 
fieXdnrfv}.  .  .  .  Now  I  rejoice,  not  that  ye  were  made 
sorry,  but  that  ye  sorrowed  to  repentance  \jieTavoiav}. 
.  .  .  For  godly  sorrow  worketh  repentance  \jieravot.av~\ 
to  salvation  not  to  be  repented  of  [duera/^^rov]." 
(2  Cor.  vii.  8-10. )  Where  is  Metanoia  in  its  lone 
and  comprehensive  grandeur  here?  In  the  original 
it  stands  nobly  at  the  top,  in  the  ascending  scale,  but 
not  in  the  version.  Where,  too,  is  "  evangelical  re- 
pentance"! Certainly,  in  this  place,  not  apparently 
above  the  other  kind. 

Judas  was  unquestionably  equal  to  repentance,  as 
19 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Mctdnoia. 

ceed  in  doing  so.  And,  moreover,  as  the 
English  Bible  is  written  in  the  common  lan- 
guage of  the  people,  and,  as  such,  belongs  to 
our  heritage  of  English  literature,  it  blends 
itself  more  with  this  than  with  the  techni- 
calities of  theology ;  its  forms  of  speech  are 
popular,  and  what  is  meant  by  "  repentance  " 
in  general  literature,  in  current  talk,  and  in 
dictionary  definitions  will  necessarily  be  under- 
stood as  intended  by  it.  "  Repentance  "  is  a 

people  generally  understand  it,  but  was,  as  unques- 
tionably, far  short  of  Metanoia  as  his  Master  under- 
stood it.  St.  Paul  could  very  naturally  repent  of 
having  written  a  letter  which  had  caused  pain,  and  as 
naturally  reverse  the  feeling  when  he  found  that  sor- 
row had  produced  so  substantial  a  thing  as  a  Change 
of  Mind,  the  condition  of  all  others  that  he  most 
valued,  in  which  he  stood  himself,  which,  when  at- 
tained, was  so  fixed  as  to  be  equivalent  to  "  salvation  " 
and  was  "  not  to  be  repented  of."  And  yet  these  two  un- 
equal words  of  the  original  are  yoked  under  one  and 
the  same  English  word ;  and  this  very  English  word  is 
conveniently  supposed  by  some  to  bear  two  senses, 
one  sense  natural  and  the  other  technical! 

The  revisers,  in  this  awkward  passage,  have  trans- 
lated jj.erafj.E7iOfj,ai  "  regret,"  leaving  fierdvoia  to  "  re- 
pentance. "  But  Judas,  it  will  be  seen  (Matt,  xxvii.  3), 
still  "  repents  himself  "\  His  remorse,  fruitful  only 
of  hemp,  continues  to  be  as  respectably  characterized, 
20 


"Metdnoia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance." 

favorite  word  among  all  writers,  especially 
those  engaged  in  depicting  life  and  action ; 
let  any  one  pause  at  it  as  it  comes  up  in  his 
general  reading,  and  he  will  see  what  it  in- 
variably is  in  the  consciousness  of  the  people, 
and  how  far  short,  therefore,  it  must  always 
fall  of  the  biblical  word  "  Metanoia." 

But  there  is  another  and  even  more  seri- 
ous matter  involved  in  this  confusion  of  mean- 
ing. The  use  of  the  word  "  repentance  "  for 

in  the  New  Version,  as  if  he  had  been  "  made  sorry 
after  a  godly  sort."  So  again,  in  Romans  xi.  29, 
dfi£rafii7.rjra  is  rendered  "  without  repentance."  (See 
also  elsewhere. )  The  revisers  who  have  kept  so  care- 
fully to  St.  Mark's  oft-repeated  "  straightway,"  for 
the  sake  of  uniformity,  might  also  have  kept  these 
words  apart,  throughout,  for  a  better  reason. 

Dr.  Roberts,  in  his  "  Companion  to  the  Revised 
New  Testament,"  speaks  of  these  two  words  as 
"  most  desirable  to  distinguish,  wherever  that  is  pos- 
sible. The  one  word,"  he  says,  "  means  simply  to 
'  rue '  or  '  regret '  a  course  which  has  been  followed ; 
the  other  implies  that  thorough  change  of  mind  which 
is  implied  in  Christian  repentance."  But  he  con- 
tinues (and  he  must  be  referring  to  the  assigned  or 
the  self-imposed  limitations  under  which  the  revisers 
labored):  "  Unfortunately  it  is  not  always  possible 
to  express  the  distinction  in  our  language"  (p.  124). 
21 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

"  Metanoia"  has  thrown  an  almost  exclusively 
emotional  character  around  both  the  original 
proclamation  of  the  gospel  and  its  present 
call.  Despite  himself  the  reader  hears  the 
"  Repent  ye!  "  of  John  the  Baptist  and  of  the 
Saviour,  like  a  cry,  a  note  of  danger,  full  of 
terror,  amid  which  the  hearts  of  the  people 
stood  still,  instead  of  what  it  really  was,  the 
invocation  of  a  mind,  heart,  and  life  which 
should  befit  such  a  glad  and  glorious  "change  " 
as  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth.  If  the 
call  had  really  been  "  Repent  ye!"  it  would 
have  been  only  an  appeal  to  the  feelings ;  and 
as,  without  question,  a  great  deal  of  the  call 
of  the  gospel  is  to  the  conscience  where  it 
"  looks  back  "  to  what  has  been  done  amiss, 
and  for  which  punishment  has  been  incurred, 
it  is  not  strange  that  in  many  quarters  this 
supposed  appeal  to  the  impenitent  nature 
only  has  been  taken  up  as  the  burden  of  all 
preaching,  all  spiritual  counsel ;  an  appeal 
in  their  hands  often  wrought  up  with  terrific 
penal  imagery ;  and  then  the  fright  which 
has  ensued  and  its  consequences  have  been 
accepted  as  the  change  of  heart. 

Or,  if  not  always  so  grossly  mistaken,  yet 
there  is  a  tendency  thus  created  to  regard  an 


"Mefd/wia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance" 

emotional  condition,  a  general  passion  of  re- 
ligious feeling,  however  induced,  as  the  seat 
of  efficacy  with  God,  and  as  the  only  safe 
and  promising  state  in  which  to  begin  and 
continue  the  Christian  life. 

Even  more :  this  is  sometimes  considered 
as  itself  the  Christian  life.  The  result  has 
often  been  the  extraordinary  incongruity  of  a 
life  of  zeal  unaccompanied  by  a  life  of  prin- 
ciple, penitence  and  faith  developed  in  con- 
spicuous measure  in  view  of  an  ideal  sinful- 
ness,  and  the  living  conscience,  the  practical 
right,  sunk  in  pharisaic  forms  which  satisfy 
certain  low  standards  of  outward  righteous- 
ness! 

The  Metanoia  is  not  here.  The  profound 
ethical  sense  has  not  been  awakened  at  all. 
Fear  has  no  genuine  ethical  power.  Sorrow 
has  no  sure  ethical  consequence.  Excitement 
of  any  kind  can  bear,  of  itself,  no  ethical  fruit. 
None  of  these  can  have  respect  with  God. 
The  only  thing  that  can  be  regarded  by  Him 
is  that  which  He  has  arranged  everything  to 
bring  about  in  us :  that  spiritual  perception  of 
the  right  and  the  true  which  grows  within  and 
around  a  Mind  that  is  being  gradually  edu- 
23 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

cated  up  to  the  divine  standard ;  the  nature 
wide  open  in  front,  not  only  looking  behind, 
and  receiving  the  whole  counsel  of  God,  not 
a  part  of  it ;  every  faculty  enlightened,  every 
feeling  inspired ;  the  entire  man  engaged ; 
conviction,  not  excitement ;  earnestness,  not 
impulse  ;  habitude,  not  paroxysm  ;  the  heart 
tempered  by  the  understanding,  the  under- 
standing warmed  by  the  heart ;  this,  the  con- 
summate and  yet  attainable  condition,  this, 
the  Metanoia,  lived  alike  by  Master  and  dis- 
ciple, this,  the  "  Mind  "  of  Christ,  and  made 
possible  to  all  by  the  Spirit  of  God — this  is 
not  conveyed  in  the  " Repent  ye!"  of  our 
gospels,  nor  does  it  come  within  the  range 
of  much  of  the  teaching  which  falls  on  the 
world's  ear.  The  all-encompassing  grandeur 
of  an  announcement  which  takes  in  the 
whole  of  life,  and  calls  upon  man  to  enlarge 
his  consciousness  with  the  eternal  and  the 
spiritual,  to  live  on  the  scale  of  another  life, 
to  let  his  character  grow  under  this  great 
knowledge,  to  let  his  conduct  fall  into  the  lines 
of  the  revealed  divine  will — all  this  is  lost. 

How  did  such  an  extraordinary  mistrans- 
lation get  into  our  New  Testament? 
24 


"Metdnoia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance" 

It  can  be  attributed  to  what  we  have  al- 
ready hinted  at,  and  some  evidence  of  which 
we  have  already  given,  namely,  a  failure  to 
grasp  the  comprehensive  and  far-reaching 
character  of  the  word.  It  came  too  early 
in  the  record  for  the  translators  to  perceive 
its  transcendental  level.  This  they  easily 
did  with  some  of  the  other  words  we  have 
named,  which  came  later,  and  when  they  had 
mounted  the  swell  of  the  ocean  on  which 
they  had  embarked. 

They  did  not  catch  this  at  once  as  the  key- 
note of  the  New  Testament,  for  the  strain  of 
the  Old  had  not  yet  died  away.  And  there 
was,  besides,  another  music  ringing  in  their 
ears:  the  sombre  tones  of  a  traditional  the- 
ology which  even  the  thunders  of  the  Refor- 
mation had  not  drowned. 

The  age,  too,  was  a  Latin-speaking  age. 
The  translators  read  their  Greek  through  the 
lenses  of  a  language  whose  grain  was  too 
coarse  to  admit  its  finer  spirit.  The  Vulgate 
also  was  an  authority  older  than  any  man- 
uscript they  possessed.  They  could  not 
bring  themselves  to  render  its  "Do  pen- 
ance "  for  "  Metanoeite,"  but  they  could  not 
divest  themselves  of  the  impression  of  pen- 
25 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

Hence  with  which  that  rendering  tinged  the 
word. 

Still  they  showed  some  signs  of  divergence, 
and  it  led  to  controversy.  Beza,  for  instance, 
had  revolted  so  far  as  to  get  his  composition 
of  "  Metanoia "  wrong,  and  make  it  Metd 
and  dnoia,  a  change  from  a  "  want  of  mind," 
a  change  from  "  folly,"  and  so  rendered  it 
resipiscentia  in  his  Latin  version — an  act, 
however,  which  still  showed  his  mental  bias.1 

We  have  not  the  authorities  at  hand  to 
prove  the  fact,  but  it  looks  very  much  as  if 

1  The  reader  will  be  interested  in  getting  a  glimpse 
into  this  controversy  when  it  started  at  the  opening  of 
the  Reformation.  "  Luther,  it  will  be  remembered, 
first  saw  the  practical  value  of  philological  study  when 
he  was  puzzling  over  the  expression  pccnitentiam 
agite  ('  Do  penance''},  which  the  Vulgate  uses  for 
the  Greek  word  that  in  the  English  translation  is  ren- 
dered '  repent.'  Was  it  possible,  he  said  to  himself, 
that  Christ  and  the  apostles  could  really  bid  men  dt 
penance  ?  Did  the  New  Testament  really  stand  on  the 
side  of  his  opponents,  and  of  all  the  gross  corruptions 
which  the  doctrine  of  penance  had  introduced?  Me- 
lanchthon  solved  this  difficulty  by  showing  to  Luther 
that  the  Greek  word  fiEravoelre,  which  Jerome  had 
translated  '  Do  penance, '  really  and  etymologically 
meant  'Change  your  mind.'  From  that  moment 
the  Reformation  entered  into  a  conscious  alliance 
26 


"Metdnoia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance''1 

the  English  translators,  who  depended  so 
much  upon  Beza  and  his  Greek  text  and  his 
Latin  version,  were  misled  by  the  same  bias 
and  compounded  "  Metanoia  "  in  the  same 
way.  If  they  did,  it  explains  everything. 
Their  "  repentance  "  were  a  very  good  render- 
ing in  that  case ;  and  hence,  then,  the  uncer- 
tain sound  with  which  their  New  Testament 
opens  to  this  day. 

But  what  shall  we  say  for  the  Revised 
Version  if  this  be  so?  The  revisers  do  not 
so  compound  it.  Is  it  possible  that  so  pal- 
pable a  misinterpretation  of  the  Greek  has 
now  been  perpetuated  because  it  had  grown 
like  a  fossil  into  the  substance  of  popular  the- 
ology and  so  escaped  recognition  in  the  Greek 
as  a  fossil  ? 

with  the  New  Learning."  (Professor  W.  Robertson 
Smith,  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church," 
Lecture  II.) 

The  Genevan  Version,  a  Continental  and  more  inde- 
pendent one,  with  which  the  Authorized  Version  ran 
in  rivalry  for  nearly  fifty  years,  rendered  "  Metano- 
eite  "  "Amend  your  lives."  The  Authorized  itself 
has  a  marginal  rendering  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel 
alternative  to  "fruits  meet  for  repentance":  "an- 
swerable to  amendment  of  life  " — omitted,  however, 
in  the  New  Version. 

27 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

It  may  now  be  imagined  with  what  inter- 
est and  expectation  we  looked  forward  to  the 
New  Version,  realizing  full  well  the  difficulty 
of  reproducing  the  original  in  this  place  and 
elsewhere  more  faithfully,  and  of  making  a 
change  so  startling,  but  hoping  that,  at  the 
least,  a  marginal  rendering  would  indicate  the 
literal  alternative,  or  a  glossarial  note  define 
the  Greek  expression  in  a  way  that  would  go 
far  to  correct  the  English  one.  But  the  re- 
vision flows  on,  making  a  ripple  of  change 
in  almost  every  verse,  yet  with  not  a  sign  of 
perturbation  over  this  sunken  rock.  Neither 
a  light-ship  nor  a  buoy  warns  of  a  spot  where 
there  has  been  shipwreck  before  now. 

We  understand,  however,  that  it  was  the 
subject  of  discussion  among  the  revisers,  and 
that  the  matter  was  finally  passed  by,  not  be- 
cause the  present  rendering  was  satisfactory, 
but  because  no  one  equivalent  English  word 
could  be  found  comprehensive  enough  for 
the  purpose. 

What,  then,  has  been  so  long  lost  in  the 
Old  Version,  remains  unrecovered  in  the 
New  because  of  a  reluctance  to  employ  a 
paraphrase!  The  poverty  of  our  language, 
in  this  respect,  is  to  keep  us  poor. 
28 


"Metdrwia  "  Mistranslated  "Repentance." 

Or,  it  may  be,  something  else  was  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  symptoms  of  which  are  appa- 
rent in  other  instances.  It  may  have  been 
the  reluctance  of  that  kind  of  conservatism 
which  prefers  not  to  disturb  traditional  notions 
or  long-established  formularies. 

We  comfort  ourselves,  however,  with  the 
thought  that  the  New  Version  is  not  a  final- 
ity, but  only  tentative  to  that  which  shall  yet 
meet  the  brave  demand  of  the  present  age. 
What  we  have  is,  in  many  respects,  a  bold 
and  noble  move,  but  the  whole  of  English 
Christendom  is  in  council  over  the  matter 
now,  and  suggestions  and  criticisms  will  flow 
in  for  some  years  to  come ;  an  advance  in 
sentiment,  also,  wilt  take  place,  making  the 
way  clearer  and  easier  to  a  more  fearless 
and  absolute  transfer  of  the  original  into  our 
native  tongue. 

We  feel  prepared,  at  least,  to  say,  with  re- 
gard to  the  present  point,  that  the  necessary 
employment  of  a  paraphrase  should  not  be 
an  occasion  for  hesitation  in  making  so  im- 
portant an  alteration.  We  can  leave  it  to  the 
candid  reader  to  judge  which  is  the  more  ob- 
jectionable: a  resort  to  a  paraphrase  which 
really  translates,  or  the  preference  for  a  tech- 
29 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

nical  word,  to  say  nothing  of  an  uncertain 
one,  which  is  always  itself  in  need  of  transla- 
tion. Better,  even,  were  the  bald  phrase 
"  Change  of  Mind,"  with  an  explanation 
which  would  give  it  fullness  and  dignity,  than 
the  misleading  rendering  we  have  to  put  up 
with  now.  There  is  no  fear  but  that  a  nobler 
expression  can  be  framed,  for  St.  Paul  him- 
self, as  we  shall  shortly  see,  found  no  difficulty 
in  ringing  many  changes  upon  the  idea  of 
the  word,  which  melt  very  kindly  into  sim- 
ple English. 


III. 

THE    INTELLECTUAL    AS    WELL    AS    MORAL 
COMPASS    OF    METANOIA. 

So  far  as  we  have  now  gone  we  have  prob- 
ably done  more  to  awaken  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  the  question  of  the  inadequacy  of 
"  repentance  "  as  a  rendering  of  "  Metanoia," 
than  to  convince  him  that  the  position  is 
rightly  taken.  We  must  go  for  the  evidence 
of  this  to  the  Scriptures  themselves ;  but,  in 
doing  so,  let  us  recur  first  to  our  imaginary 
scholar  whom  we  have  supposed  to  be  re- 
ceiving his  impression  freshly  from  the  origi- 
nal. 

Happily,  as  it  turns  out,  we  are  not  obliged 
to  go  even  so  far  as  to  imagine  such  a  scholar, 
for  the  impressions  of  an  actual  one  of  that 
kind  came  recently  to  our  hand,  which  are  in 
such  singular  coincidence  with  the  view  we 
are  trying  to  present  that  we  venture  to  quote 
them  entire.  We  are  glad,  also,  to  avail  our- 
31 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

selves  of  his  brief  dissertation  as  a  guide  in 
directing  a  part  of  the  inquiry. 

That  accomplished  master  of  Greek,  De 
Quincey  (who,  if  any  one  ever  did,  held  his 
mind  clear  and  free  in  a  scholarly  conscious- 
ness of  the  transcendent  atmosphere  into 
which  the  Greek  language  rose  when  it  was 
summoned  to  meet  the  necessities  of  Chris- 
tian truth  and  the  exigencies  of  divine  in- 
spiration), was,  it  seems,  actually  confronted 
by  an  intelligent  friend  with  the  very  ques- 
tion which  is  now  engaging  us.  The  record 
of  it  will  be  found  in  his  "Autobiographic 
Sketches."  1 

"  Lady  Carbury,"  he  writes,  "  one  day  told 
me  that  she  could  not  see  any  reasonable 
ground  for  what  is  said  of  Christ,  and  else- 

1  "  He  [De  Quincey]  passed  through  a  number  of 
schools  and  .  .  .  was  distinguished  for  his  eminent 
knowledge  of  Greek.  At  fifteen  he  was  pointed  out 
by  his  master  (himself  a  ripe  scholar)  to  a  stranger 
in  the  remarkable  words  :  '  That  boy  could  harangue 
an  Athenian  mob  better  than  you  or  I  could  address 
an  English  one.'  ...  In  this,  as  in  the  subtlety  of 
the  analytical  power,  De  Quincey  must  have  strongly 
resembled  Coleridge."  (Harriet  Martineau,  "  Bio- 
graphical Sketches,"  p.  95.) 
32 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Metdnoict. 

where  of  John  the  Baptist,  that  He  opened 
His  mission  by  preaching  '  repentance.'  Why 
'repentance'!  Why  then,  more  than  at  any 
other  time?  Her  reason  for  addressing  this 
remark  to  me  was  that  she  feared  there  might 
be  some  error  in  the  translation  of  the  Greek 
expression.  I  replied  that,  in  my  opinion, 
there  was,  and  that  I  had  myself  always  been 
irritated  by  the  entire  irrelevance  of  the  Eng- 
lish word,  and  by  something  very  like  cant, 
on  which  the  whole  burden  of  the  passage  is 
thrown.  How  was  it  any  natural  preparation 
for  a  vast  spiritual  revelation  that  men  should, 
first  of  all,  acknowledge  any  special  duty  of 
repentance?  The  repentance,  if  any  move- 
ment of  that  nature  could  be  intelligently  sup- 
posed called  for,  should  more  naturally  follow 
this  great  revolution — which  as  yet,  both  in 
its  principle  and  in  its  purpose,  was  altogether 
mysterious — than  herald  it^or  ground  it.  In 
my  opinion  the  Greek  word  '  Metdnoia '  con- 
cealed a  most  profound  meaning — a  meaning  of 
prodigious  compass — which  lore  no  allusion  to 
any  ideas  whatever  of  repentance.  The  Metd 
carried  with  it  an  emphatic  expression  of  its 
original  idea — the  idea  of  transfer,  of  transla- 
tion ;  or,  if  we  prefer  a  Grecian  to  a  Roman 
33 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

appareling,  the  idea  of  a  metamorphosis.  And 
this  idea,  to  what  is  it  applied?  Upon  what 
object  is  the  idea  of  spiritual  transfiguration 
made  to  bear?  Simply  upon  the  noetic  or  in- 
tellectual faculty — the  faculty  of  shaping  and 
conceiving  things  under  their  true  relations. 
The  holy  herald  of  Christ,  and  Christ  Him- 
self, the  Finisher  of  prophecy,  made  procla- 
mation alike  of  the  same  mysterious  summons, 
as  a  baptism  or  rite  of  initiation,  namely, 
MsravosiTe:  Henceforth  transfigure  your 
theory  of  moral  truth ;  the  old  theory  is  laid 
aside  as  infinitely  insufficient ;  a  new  and 
spiritual  revelation  is  established.  Metanoe- 
ite!  Contemplate  moral  truth  as  radiating 
from  a  new  center ;  apprehend  it  under  trans- 
figured relations. 

"John  the  Baptist,  like  other  earlier 
prophets,  delivered  a  message  which,  prob- 
ably enough,  he  did  not  himself  more  than 
dimly  understand,  and  never  in  its  full  com- 
pass of  meaning.  Christ  occupied  another 
station.  Not  only  was  He  the  original  In- 
terpreter, but  He  was  Himself  the  Author — 
Founder  at  once,  and  Finisher — of  the  great 
transfiguration  applied  to  ethics,  which  He 
and  the  Baptist  alike  announced  as  forming 
34 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Mctdnoia. 

the  code  of  the  new  revolutionary  era  now 
opening  its  endless  career.  The  human  race 
was  summoned  to  bring  a  transfiguring  sense 
and  spirit  of  interpretation  (Metanoia)  to  a 
transfigured  ethics ;  an  altered  organ  to  an 
altered  object.  This  is  by  far  the  grandest 
miracle  recorded  in  Scripture.  No  exhibi- 
tion of  blank  power — not  the  arresting  of  the 
earth's  motion,  not  the  calling  back  of  the 
dead  to  life — can  approach  in  grandeur  to 
this  miracle  which  we  daily  behold,  namely, 
the  inconceivable  mystery  of  having  written 
and  sculptured  upon  the  tablets  of  man's 
heart  a  new  code  of  moral  distinctions,  all 
modifying — many  reversing — the  old  ones. 
What  would  have  been  thought  of  any 
prophet  if  he  should  have  promised  to  trans- 
figure the  celestial  mechanics ;  if  he  had  said, 
'  I  will  create  a  new  pole-star,  a  new  zodiac, 
and  new  laws  of  gravitation ;  briefly,  I  will 
make  a  new  earth  and  new  heavens '?  And 
yet  a  thousand  times  more  awful  it  was  to 
undertake  the  writing  of  new  laws  upon  the 
spiritual  conscience  of  man.  '  Metanoeite ! ' 
was  the  cry  from  the  wilderness.  Wheel  into 
a  new  center  your  moral  system ;  geocentric 
has  that  system  been  up  to  this  hour,  that 
35 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

is,  having  earth  and  the  earthly  for  its  start- 
ing-point ;  henceforth  make  it  heliocentric, 
that  is,  with  the  sun,  or  the  heavenly,  for  the 
principle  of  motion." * 

This  brilliant  statement  we  believe  to  be 
true  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  the  heralding  was 
not  all  a  bare  summons.  It  was  accompanied 
by  every  credential  which  the  Summoner 
could  show ;  not  only  the  credential  of  signs 
and  wonders,  but  of  teachings,  which  evi- 
dently inclosed  far  more  than  was  apparent, 
which  held  out  an  ulterior  meaning  to  be 
disclosed  in  due  time ;  teachings  which 
penetrated  to  the  very  soul,  and  moved  the 
heart  of  the  age  wherever  they  were  heard. 

l  De  Quincey's  works,  "  Autobiographic 
Sketches,"  vol.  i.,  p.  434. 

In  a  closing  note  to  the  "  Supplementary  Essay  on 
the  Essenes,"  he  recurs  to  the  subject  again  :  "  Meta- 
noia — which  word,  I  contend,  cannot  properly  be 
translated  '  repentance '/  for  it  would  have  been  pure 
cant  to  suppose  that  age,  or  any  age,  as  more  under 
a  summons  to  repentance  than  any  other  assignable. 
I  understand  by  Metdnoia  a  revolution  of  thought — 
a  great  intellectual  change — in  the  accepting  a  new 
centre  for  all  moral  truth  from  Christ ;  which  center 
it  was  that  subsequently  caused  all  the  offense  of 
Christianity  to  the  Roman  people." 
36 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Metdnoia. 

"  Metanoia  "  was  the  theme — \heprogramma 
— projected,  and  everything  that  was  after- 
wards spoken  wrought  out  its  meaning  upon 
the  mind  of  the  time,  sensibly  or  insensibly 
preparing  and  making  ready  its  way.  It  was 
the  great  harbinger  word  of  the  Gospel,  bear- 
ing witness  to  the  "  Light."  So,  while,  as 
De  Quincey  says,  it  was  a  prodigious  assump- 
tion, the  assumption  of  a  power  to  work  the 
most  stupendous  of  miracles,  it,  at  the  same 
time,  assumed  the  capacity  in  man  to  make 
the  miracle  possible.  Christ  would  wait  for 
the  word  to  tell.  This  was  His  method 
throughout,  even  in  special  instances.  For 
example :  "  Destroy  this  temple,"  said  He, 
at  the  very  outset,  to  those  who  questioned 
His  authority  to  expel  the  traders,  "and  in 
three  days  I  will  raise  it  up."  It  was  only 
after  Pentecost  that  the  evangelist  was  able 
to  add,  "  He  spake  of  the  temple  of  His 
body."  But  just  as  that  declaration  sank 
into  their  minds  and  worked  unconsciously 
there — indeed,  worked  in  the  minds  of  some 
of  them  till  it  reappeared  three  years  after 
as  one  of  the  taunts  flung  up  at  Him  on  the 
cross :  "  Thou  that  destroyest  the  temple,  and 
buildest  it  in  three  days,  save  Thyself  " — so 
37 


9  9  7  8  3 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia, 

the  summons  to  a  mysterious  Metanoia  must 
have  kept  their  whole  consciousness  thrilled 
with  the  sense  of  a  strange  experience,  and  as 
strange  expectation,  dumb  and  unintelligible, 
perhaps,  but  preparing  the  ground  for  what 
was  to  be  sown  in  it. 

What  could  have  helped  a  great  scheme 
of  progress  better  than  to  put  a  word  of 
prophecy  at  the  beginning  of  it  ?  What 
could  have  helped  the  teacher  more  than  a 
preliminary  word  which  was  equivalent  to 
an  inspiration  in  its  power  to  stir  every  fibre 
and  create  a  boundless  desire  to  learn  and 
to  know?  Such  an  all-permeating  word 
was  like  the  slow  fusion  of  the  metal  for  the 
mould  and  the  slow  cooling  of  it  while  it  was 
assuming  a  new  form.  It  was  proclaiming  a 
Change  of  Mind,  and  creating  it  at  the  same 
moment,  by  drawing  the  subject  of  it  into 
active  and  intelligent  participation. 

De  Quincey  has  given  the  weight  of  his 
authority,  as  a  scholar,  to  the  intellectual  bear- 
ing of  the  word  "  Metanoia,"  in  the  extraor- 
dinary use  to  which  it  is  applied  in  the  New 
Testament.  But  he  might  have  included  in 
his  statement  its  equal  and  coincident  range 
38 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Metdnoia. 

in  the  sphere  of  the  moral  and  affectional 
nature.  Nous,  as  we  have  already  said,  cor- 
responds perfectly  to  "  Mind."  It  allows  our 
conception  of  an  intellectual  consciousness  to 
let  itself  down  into  the  whole  possible  pro- 
fundity of  a  spiritual  consciousness.  This 
is,  perhaps,  implied  in  what  he  says,  and  it 
is  as  well  that  the  stress  was  laid  by  him  on 
the  intellectual  character  of  the  expression, 
inasmuch  as  this  is  the  very  point  that  is 
most  in  danger  of  being  lost  sight  of,  and  is 
of  vast  importance  in  any  complete  consid- 
eration of  the  subject. 

The  office  of  the  intellect  in  the  apprehen- 
sion of  divine  truth  is  not  given  its  due  con- 
sequence. "  The  noetic  faculty,  or  the  faculty 
of  shaping  and  conceiving  things  under  their 
true  relations,"  to  use  De  Quincey's  expres- 
sion, is  foremost  in  all  human  action — it  is 
first.  The  fact  of  the  dependence  of  our 
whole  nature  upon  it  is  almost  too  palpable 
to  dwell  upon,  and  yet  the  instantaneous 
flash  with  which  outward  things  sometimes 
pass  through  it  into  the  heart  often  leads  us 
to  ignore  the  office  of  the  medium  by  which 
they  entered. 

39 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

Take  a  common  instance  of  this  uncon- 
sciousness. The  hymn  which,  as  it  is  sung, 
suffuses  the  soul  with  religious  emotion  has 
gone,  in  less  than  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
through  a  full  and  varied  intellectual  process 
of  which  the  soul  has  taken  no  notice.  First, 
the  perception  of  its  meaning ;  next,  the  per- 
ception of  its  beauty  as  an  expression  of  the 
meaning  to  the  degree  that  sensibility  is  ex- 
cited ;  next,  the  susceptibility  to  its  musical 
rendering,  which  intensifies  the  sensibility; 
next,  the  throng  of  associations  which  comes, 
partly  from  the  memory,  partly  from  the 
imagination,  and,  like  the  legendary  angel 
of  Bethesda,  stirs  the  waters  of  feeling  well- 
ing up  beneath — these  are  purely  intellectual. 
We  are  hardly  aware,  unless  we  watch  the 
mechanism  of  our  nature,  how  much  and 
how  continually  the  Nous,  in  its  primary  sense, 
is  occupied  in  conveying  inspiration  to  the 
heart.  Memory  is  forever  pouring  its  store 
into  this  realm ;  knowledge  of  every  kind  is 
daily  streaming  in  by  the  portals  of  the  senses, 
passing  through  the  strangest  transmutations 
as  it  is  touched  by  the  reason  or  the  fancy, 
till  it  reaches  the  sanctuary  and  mounts  into 
something  which  takes  hold  of  the  entire 
40 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Metdnoia. 

nature.  But  then  the  first  has  become  the 
last,  and  the  last  first.  That  only  which 
reaches,  engrosses,  and  moves  the  heart  is 
that  which  works  into  the  essence  of  the  life ; 
and  that  which  remains  intellectual  alone  is 
only  on  the  way  to  its  practical  end,  an  abor- 
tive thing  if  it  gets  no  farther. 

The  intellect  may  be  the  Beautiful  Gate — 
even,  literally,  Solomon's  Porch — but  the 
heart  is  the  vital  centre,  the  Sanctuary  of  the 
temple.  All  the  outer  courts  point  towards 
this,  the  precinct  of  the  spirit.  It  is  only 
when  the  thoughts  which  throng  them  like  the 
multitude,  it  is  only  when  the  purposes  which 
minister  in  them  like  the  priests,  have  actu- 
ally lit  the  altar-fire  and  gone  behind  the  veil, 
that  the  divine  uses  of  the  temple  are  mani- 
fested and  make  their  return.  And  yet  it  is 
none  the  less  true  that  without  these  courts 
of  approach  the  altar  would  never  burn,  the 
hidden  power  within  would  never  be  evoked. 

It  is  the  intellect  which  awakens  that  in- 
most interior.  It  receives  the  crowd  in  its 
magnificent  areas,  it  reports  the  situation  out- 
side, and  then  the  secret  heart,  brooded 
upon  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  takes  in  the  situa- 
tion ;  the  mystic  circuit  is  complete ;  upon 
41 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

that  heartfelt  consciousness  the  character  is 
formed,  and  upon  that  character  the  life. 
It  is  a  divine  dependence  ordained  in  the 
structure  of  our  nature,  and  the  process  of  it 
ought  to  be  vividly  before  our  minds  if  we 
would  understand  the  operation  of  the  Meta- 
noia. 

We  have  used  this  apostolic  figure  of  the 
"  temple  of  God  "  not  only  to  give  as  graphic 
illustration  as  possible  to  a  manifold  fact  of 
our  nature  under  any  circumstances,  but  also 
to  consecrate  the  fact  to  the  sacred  relation 
in  which  we  are  discussing  it,  and  bring  it> 
besides,  into  the  very  connection  in  which 
St.  Paul  used  the  metaphor. 

It  is  only  when  the  situation  is  a  divine  one 
that  man  is  found  to  be  the  temple  of  God. 
So  long  as  he  confronts  only  the  spirit  of  the 
world,  whether  it  be  in  the  nature  of  things 
or  in  the  nature  of  men,  he  is  like  Herod's 
temple,  without  the  Shechinah.  He  is  only 
in  partial  use ;  his  true  occupation  is  gone, 
or  has  not  come.  But  when  "  the  Lord  visits 
His  temple,"  then  the  wisdom  of  the  world 
finds  no  longer  entrance,  but  "the  wisdom 
of  God  in  a  mystery."  In  that  change  of 
42 


Intellectual  Compass  of  Metdnoia. 

situation  comes  the  wondrous  Change  of 
Mind. 

"  Eye  hath  not  seen,"  exclaims  the  Apos- 
tle, "  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into 
the  heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath 
prepared  for  them  that  love  Him  " — not  in 
the  next  world  only,  but  in  this.  "  Now,"  he 
continues,  "  we  have  received,  not  the  spirit 
of  the  world,  but  the  Spirit  which  is  of  God  ; 
that  we  might  know  the  things  that  are  freely 
given  to  us  of  God."  "  Know  ye  not  that 
ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit 
of  God  dwelleth  in  you?  .  .  .  Let  no  man  de- 
ceive himself.  If  any  man  among  you  seem- 
eth  to  be  wise  in  this  world,  let  him  become 
a  fool,  that  he  may  be  wise."  Such  was  to 
be  the  utter  dispossession  of  himself,  such  the 
utter  evacuation  of  the  wisdom  of  the  world, 
such  the  Metanoia,  when  he  came  to  know 
"  Christ  the  power  of  God,  and  the  wisdom 
of  God." 

St.  Paul,  when  charged  with  a  message  like 
this,  may  well  have  scorned  to  come  with  the 
"  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom  "  which 
then  captivated  the  imagination  of  men ;  but 
no  man  ever  lived  who,  "  in  demonstration  of 
the  Spirit  and  of  power,"  made  a  greater  ap- 
43 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

peal  to  the  intellect,  more  riveted  the  intelli- 
gent attention  of  the  world,  and  more  elicited 
the  admiration  of  the  finest  intellects  the 
world  has  known.  If  ever  a  man  was  chosen 
because  of  his  intellectual  power,  and  if  ever 
a  man  appealed  to  the  understanding  and 
struck  home  through  every  faculty  and  intui- 
tion which  the  understanding  could  summon, 
it  was  he. 


44 


IV. 

THE    INAUGURAL    ACTION    OF    METANOIA    IN 
THE    FIRST    AGE. 

IF  we  have  made  our  meaning  clear — and 
much  that  we  have  said  has  an  ulterior  refer- 
ence which  will  make  it  clearer — the  reader  is 
now  prepared  to  take  up  the  historic  moment 
when  the  gospel  was  inaugurated,  and  to 
contemplate  the  stupendous  change  of  out- 
ward situation  which  then  ensued. 

What  an  epoch  it  was!  What  a  meaning 
lay  in  the  Metanoia  that  was  then  proclaimed ! 
"  The  noetic  faculty,  or  the  faculty  of  shap- 
ing and  conceiving  things  under  their  true 
relations,"  entered  now  upon  its  work,  and 
the  issue  was  to  be  a  revolution  in  the  whole 
human  conception  of  life.  Christ  substituted 
His  own  wisdom  for  the  wisdom  of  the 
world,  and  what  we  see  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament  is,  first,  the  natural  process  of  the 
45 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

Metanoia — this  wisdom  working  through  the 
intelligence  upon  the  heart,  the  conscience, 
and  the  life ;  and,  next,  the  thoroughness  of 
the  result  in  forming  a  new  spiritual  con- 
sciousness in  that  age.1 

It  was,  indeed,  the  "beginning  of  mira- 
cles "  :  the  water  was  turned  into  wine.  What 
else  could  have  taken  place  from  His  pres- 
ence at  the  bridal  where  heaven  and  earth 
were  made  one?  The  change  was  now  in- 
evitable from  the  lower  into  the  higher,  from 
the  temporal  into  the  eternal,  from  the  natural 
into  the  spiritual,  from  the  human  into  the 
divine.  Life  took  a  new  character  and  an- 
other meaning  when  He  drew  near.  It  was 
found  to  be  His  life.  The  letter  of  the  Old 
Testament  dissolved  into  the  spirit  of  the 
New.  The  law  disappeared,  and  the  right- 
eousness which  is  by  faith,  red  as  the  blood 
of  a  great  Sacrifice,  was  found  instead,  filling 
the  vessels  of  human  purification  to  the  brim. 
The  good  wine  had  been  kept  until  now! 

Did  ever  the  world  see  so  mighty  and  so 
radical  a  revolution  as  came  upon  it  then? 

1  See  Matthew  Arnold's  view  of  "  Metdnoia  "  in  a 
note  at  the  end  of  the  Essay. 
46 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

Judaism  gave  way  to  a  universal  religion. 
The  Mosaic  night  broke  into  the  dawn  of 
the  perfect  day.  The  Fatherhood  of  God 
was  revealed  to  all  men,  and  a  brotherhood 
with  the  Son  of  God!  Now  were  they  the 
sons  of  God !  partakers  of  the  divine  nature ! 
This  world  was  discovered  to  be  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  other  world,  and  death 
was  merged  into  a  resurrection  of  the  dead! 
Righteousness  and  truth  were  to  prevail,  for 
the  power  of  sin  had  been  destroyed !  And 
the  efficacy  of  all  this  lay  in  the  person  of  the 
Christ.  It  was  He  who  gave  all  this  light. 
The  order  of  human  life  reversed  itself  in 
Him.  All  conduct  was  to  flow  from  a  spirit 
within,  not  by  a  law  without.  Selfishness 
was  turned  into  self-surrender  and  self-sacri- 
fice. The  affections  were  to  be  set  upon 
things  above,  not  on  things  on  the  earth. 
The  spirit  was  everything,  the  flesh  profited 
nothing.  In  all  human  action  was  to  be  the 
consciousness  of  Eternity ;  in  all  intercourse 
of  man  with  man  no  less  than  the  magna- 
nimity of  God. 

As  we  said  in  the  beginning,  what  strikes 
us  first,  as  we  open  our  New  Testament,  is 
47 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

the  commanding  position  in  which  we  find 
the  word  "  Metanoia."  It  is  the  great  initia- 
tory word  of  the  first  three  gospels.  How- 
ever they  may  vary  in  the  way  they  begin  the 
story,  they  unite  in  the  way  they  introduce 
this.  The  summons  to  mankind,  first  by  the 
Baptist,  next  by  the  Christ,  is  to  a  Metanoia 
— a  Change  of  Mind.  And  when  we  come 
to  the  fourth  gospel,  with  its  interior  view  of 
the  life  of  Christ,  it  is  to  discover  "  Metanoia  " 
also  at  the  very  outset,  but  in  another  form  : 
in  an  expression  which,  characteristically  of 
that  gospel,  carries  us  into  the  very  depths 
of  the  selfsame  idea. 

Let  us  combine  the  four  accounts.  Now 
we  shall  see  it  in  its  true  perspective ;  that 
is,  successively  in  its  intellectual,  ethical,  and 
spiritual  development. 

In  the  very  beginning  we  have  the  Christ, 
half  philosophically,  half  spiritually  depicted 
as  the  "  Logos,"  the  "  Word  " ;  then  as  the 
"  Light  of  men."  What  greater  implication 
could  there  be  that  Christianity  was  directed 
through  the  understanding  to  the  heart? 
Next,  John  the  Baptist  is  spoken  of  as  the 
48 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

"witness"  to  this  Light.  He  was  to  "go  before 
the  face  of  the  Lord  to  prepare  His  way." 
The  method  of  his  preparation  was  to  pro- 
duce, first,  a  powerful,  controlling  impression 
upon  the  intelligence  of  the  people.  His  per- 
sonal appearance,  his  clothing  like  that  of  an 
ancient  prophet,  his  ascetic  look,  his  secluded 
life,  the  "voice,"  out  of  Isaiah,  with  which 
he  spoke,  the  burden  of  his  first  announce- 
ment— all  were  in  keeping,  and  were  calcu- 
lated to  rouse  the  whole  nation.  The  past 
came  vividly  back  to  their  memory;  the 
future  was  as  vividly,  though  mysteriously 
and  presagingly,  brought  to  their  imagina- 
tion. He  came  "proclaiming  a  Baptism  of 
Metanoia  unto  sending  away 1  of  sins."  His 
vocal  summons  was  that  of  a  herald.  "  Meta- 
noelte !  Take  a  New  Mind  upon  you :  for  the 

1  elf  afaaiv,  dphesis,  a  sending  away,  a  letting  go, 
a  setting  free.  The  Latin  "remission,"  a  sending 
back,  as  used  in  the  English  versions,  savors  too 
much  of  a  letting  off,  and  is  too  evidently  a  render- 
ing colored  by  its  association  with  the  punitive  ele- 
ment in  repentance.  Metanoia  is  "  unto  the  sending 
awayoi sins."  That  is,  its  natural  effect  is  to  set  the 
soul  free  from  the  bondage  of  the  disposition  to  sin. 

But  Christ,  in  creating  the  Metanoia,  takes  away 
sin.     It  is  His  personal  work. 
49 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  And,  as  if 
his  "  voice  "  were  not  enough,  he  spoke  also  by 
this  symbol  whose  meaning  must  have  been 
universally  understood  to  be  a  change  from 
an  old  condition  into  a  new,  even  such  a 
change,  as  they  esteemed  it,  as  that  from 
dark  paganism  to  glorious  Judaism.  It  now 
meant  a  change  from  dark  Judaism  to  some 
far  exceeding  glory.  It  meant  a  change  that 
would  really,  not  typically,  bring  with  it  a 
sending  away  of  sins.  He  thus  expressively 
coupled  this  sign  of  a  Change  of  Condition 
with  his  summons  to  a  Change  of  Mind.  It 
was  no  other  than  "  a  Baptism  of  Metanoia." 

His  summons  of  the  Pharisees  and  Saddu- 
cees  to  a  Change  of  Mind  was  as  revolution- 
ary and  as  radical  as  it  well  could  be.  In 
this  he  struck  right  at  their  views.  He  broke 
their  illusions.  "Think  not  to  say  within 
yourselves,  We  have  Abraham  to  our  father : 
for  I  say  unto  you,  That  God  is  able  of  these 
stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham. 
Even  now  the  ax  is  lying  at  the  root  of  the 
trees."  There  must  be  fruit  worthy  of  the 
Metanoia  (rr\<;  jweravo/af). 

The  effect  of  these  utterances  upon  the 
people  was  as  distinctly  intellectual  as  it 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

was  emotional.  Their  whole  intelligence  was 
roused  to  such  a  degree  that  they  not  only 
went  down  into  the  Baptism  and  sought  prac- 
tical counsel  for  their  future  lives,  but  they 
were  thrown  into  a  state  of  "expectation." 
They  were  excited  to  inquiry.  "All  men 
reasoned  in  their  hearts  of  John,  whether 
he  were  the  Christ,  or  not."  Finally  priests 
and  Levites  came  down  from  Jerusalem  to 
ask  him,  "  Who  art  thou  ?  that  we  may  give 
an  answer  to  them  that  sent  us.  What  say- 
est  thou  of  thyself  ?  " 

Up  to  a  certain  point  he  had  not  an- 
nounced the  Christ,  but  he  had  awakened 
every  thought  and  association  which  could 
suggest  Him.  He  would  seem  to  have  gath- 
ered this  intense  concentration  of  attention 
upon  himself  in  order  to  acquire  additional 
power  in  portraying  the  greater  grandeur  of 
Him  who  was  coming. 

He  made  himself  the  dark  background  of 
the  picture  he  now  drew.  He  himself  was 
but  a  voice.  "  One  mightier  than  I  cometh." 
He  himself  was  not  worthy  to  stoop  down 
and  unlace  His  sandals.  "  I  indeed  bap- 
tize you  in  water ;  but  He  shall  baptize  you 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

in  the  Holy  Spirit  and  fire."  He  is  the  real 
Baptizer;  the  Metanoia  that  is  to  come  by 
Him  is  to  come  through  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  something  more  potent  than  water. 
With  Him  that  Baptism  and  the  Metanoia 
are  one.  "What  I  am,  what  I  teach,  what 
I  summon  you  to,  what  I  baptize  in,  are  but 
foreshadows  of  Him." 

Powerful  as  was  this  picture,  John  drew 
still  another.  It  was  based  upon  a  familiar 
scene  in  their  every-day  life.  This  Coming 
One  was  the  great  Harvester,  whose  win- 
nowing-fork  should  stir  humanity  to  its 
depths,  as  so  much  grain  on  the  threshing- 
floor,  and  throw  it  against  the  currents  of  the 
Spirit.  The  wheat  would  fall  at  His  feet  and 
go  into  His  garner,  but  the  stubble  would  fly 
beyond  Him  to  become  only  fuel  for  fire. 

He  painted  these  two  strong  pictures  upon 
their  imaginations — pictures  whose  parabolic 
force  would  sink  profoundly  into  their  minds. 
Vague  conceptions  were  they  as  yet — as 
vague  as  the  idea  of  a  Metanoia  itself  must 
have  been — but  there  was  a  far-reaching  sig- 
nificance in  them  which,  as  now  united  with 
the  call  to  a  Change  of  Mind,  time  would 
reveal  and  the  reality  would  confirm." 
52 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

The  seed  of  much  thinking  was  sown,  and 
a  kind  of  thinking  that  was  sure  to  work  its 
way  into  the  life. 

It  was  not  until  after  all  this ;  not  until 
Jesus  had  come  and  been  baptized ;  not,  in- 
deed, until  He  had  returned  to  him  after  the 
temptation  in  the  wilderness — that  John  made 
known  the  fact  that  his  own  Baptism  had 
had  a  still  deeper  purpose  than  had  yet  been 
suspected.  Not  only  was  it  a  sign  of  the 
Metanoia  in  view  of  the  impending  Change, 
not  only  did  it  convey  a  typical  intimation 
of  Him  who  should  bring  about  this  Change, 
but  it  had  all  along  been  the  designed  occa- 
sion when  the  Christ  Himself,  in  bodily  pres- 
ence, should  be  made  known. 

John  had  been  utterly  in  the  dark  as  to 
who  He  was.  He  had  been  in  even  a  greater 
state  of  expectation  than  the  people.  All  he 
knew  was  that  "  He  that  sent  him  to  baptize 
in  water,  the  same  had  said  to  him,  Upon 
whomsoever  thou  shall  see  the  Spirit  descend- 
ing, and  remaining  upon  Him,  the  same  is 
He  who  baptizeth  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  "I 
knew  Him  not,"  he  said  afterwards ;  "  but  in 
order  that  ['iva]  He  should  be  made  manifest 
53 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

unto  Israel,  for  this  cause  came  I  [dia  TOVTO 
fjWov  eyo)J  baptizing  in  water." 

This  remarkable  statement  cannot  be  too 
strongly  reiterated  in  view  of  the  significance 
we  may  attach  to  it.  The  symbol,  Baptism, 
was  put  into  John's  hands  not  only,  as  we 
say,  to  express  the  impending  Metanoia,  the 
Change  of  Mind  to  which  the  people  were 
summoned,  but  also  to  be  the  means  by 
which  the  Christ,  the  consummate  Agent  of 
it  all,  should  be  made  known  to  John  him- 
self and  to  the  people.  Everything  was  in 
suspense  until  this  supreme  moment  of  per- 
ception, knowledge,  realization,  came.  The 
Metanoia  was  not  at  the  full  until  He  was 
"  made  manifest." 

The  fact  further  defines  the  word.  John's 
own  Mind  was  waiting  to  be  informed.  The 
Mind  of  Israel  was  waiting  to  be  informed. 
Both  were  yet  in  the  Pronoia.  They  were 
in  the  line  of  that  information,  but  the  know- 
ledge had  not  come.  They  stood  on  the 
verge  of  the  Metanoia.  When  it  should  dawn 
it  would  affect  every  Mind  according  to  its 
previous  condition.  The  Change  would  be 
either  an  evolution  or  a  revolution ;  but  in 
54 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  A ge. 

either  case  it  would  be  a  Change  of  Mind, 
an  advance  into  a  new  stage  of  conscious- 
ness, a  confirmation  of  what  had  already  been 
dimly  discerned,  or  a  contradiction  of  what 
had  hitherto  been  wrongly  imagined.  The 
one  was  John's  position,  ready  for  any  de- 
velopment ;  the  other,  in  different  degrees 
and  forms,  was  the  position  of  the  people. 

Let  it  still  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  was 
known  as  "a  Baptism  of  Metanoia."  Now 
Jesus  Himself  was  to  enter  the  rite.  If  it 
were  "  the  Baptism  of  repentance"  as  it  is  ren- 
dered, why  was  He  there  ?  What  had  it  to 
do  with  Him,  or  He  with  it?  This  has  been 
the  puzzle  of  theologians,  who  labor  under  the 
prepossession  of  the  old  rendering.  But  that 
He  should  participate  in  and  be  the  central 
glory  of  "a  Baptism  of  a  Change  of  Mind,"  in 
the  large  sense  in  which  we  understand  that 
expression,  would  be  sublimely  consistent  with 
His  character  as  the  Christ;  and  it  would, 
moreover,  give  us  an  inner  glimpse  of  His  life, 
which  would  ally  it  still  more  with  our  own. 

We  have  reason  to  think  that  Jesus  Him- 
self was  in  the  background  with  the  others, 

55 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

personally  known  to  John,  yet  spiritually  un- 
known to  him ;  personally  known  to  many, 
yet  spiritually  undiscerned  by  them ;  person- 
ally known  to  Himself  in  the  deepest  con- 
sciousness of  what  He  might  be,  perceiving 
in  Himself  all  the  marks  of  the  Christ,  yet 
with  that  consciousness  awaiting  the  seal  of 
the  divine  confirmation.  Israel,  John,  Jesus, 
were  all,  in  these  different  degrees,  in  the 
Pronoia — the  Mind  before  it  had  crossed 
into  perfect  intelligence.  The  "  Baptism  of 
Metanoia"  was  therefore  to  be  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Christ  to  Himself  o&  well  as  to  them.1 
The  event  declares  this  to  be  the  very  fact. 
"When  all  the  people  had  been  baptized," 
then  He  also  entered  by  the  selfsame  heaven- 
appointed  gate — it  was  "of  heaven," not  "of 
men" — into  the  new  order  of  things:  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  which  was  at  hand.  What 

1  Was  there  no  meaning  in  the  event  when,  after 
three  years  of  this  transfiguring  experience,  suddenly 
"the  fashion  of  His  countenance  was  altered,  and 
His  face  did  shine  as  the  sun,"  to  a  group  of  His 
disciples  on  the  mount,  and  the  divine  words  uttered 
at  His  Baptism  were  uttered  again?  Was  there  no 
meaning  in  it  when  the  whole  truth  and  reality  of 
that  vision  of  a  change  burst  upon  all  of  them  in  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead? 
56 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

happened  ?  As  He  came  up  out  of  the  water 
the  heavens  were  rent  asunder,  "  and  lo,  a 
voice  from  heaven,  saying,  Thou  art — this 
is — My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased."  "  And  I  saw,"  said  John,  "  and 
bare  record  that  this  is  the  Son  of  God." 1 

What  a  Metanoia  was  there,  to  both  Jesus 
and  John !  The  Pronoia  was  over  with  both ! 
The  boundary  had  been  crossed ;  the  veil 
had  been  lifted.  The  whole  great  advance 
had  been  made  in  a  moment  of  time.  Jesus, 
filled  with  the  immensity  of  a  now  confirmed 
consciousness,  "  filled  with  the  Spirit,"  went 
into  the  wilderness  to  breast  the  trial  which 

l  "  By  this  anointing  of  the  Spirit,"  says  Ols- 
hausen,  "  the  gradual  development  of  the  human 
consciousness  in  Jesus  attained  its  height.  .  .  .  The 
Baptism,  accordingly,  was  the  sublime  season  when 
the  character  of  the  xpiaT°£>  which  was  dormant  in 
the  gradually  developing  child  and  youth,  now  came 
forth  and  expanded  itself.  Compare  the  remarkable 
words  in  Justin,  '  Dial.  Tryph.  cum  Jud.,'  p.  226: 
'  Though  the  Messiah  has  been  born  and  lives,  He 
is  unknown,  and  does  not  even  know  Himself,  nor 
has  any  power,  until  Elias  shall  come  and  anoint  Him 
and  make  Him  known  to  all.'  "  (Olshausen's  "Com- 
mentary on  the  New  Testament,"  vol.  i.,  p.  271.) 
57 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

should  come  to  Him  as  the  announced  Son 
of  God.  John  emerged  from  the  wilderness 
into  the  full  light  of  the  same  Metanoia, 
into  the  blaze  of  the  very  consummation 
amid  which  he  was  to  wane  out  of  sight,  to 
await  the  return  of  Jesus,  and  to  say,  "  Be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God!  This  is  He  of 
whom  I  spake." 

And  what  a  Metanoia  had  come,  also, 
upon  the  disciples  of  John  and  upon  Israel! 
With  Jesus  and  with  John  the  Change  of 
Mind,  as  we  say,  was  in  the  form  of  devel- 
opment, an  evolution  from  one  state  of  con- 
sciousness into  another.  But  upon  Israel  it 
had  come  like  a  Change  from  darkness  to 
light,  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  a  revo- 
lution of  consciousness,  an  inversion,  as  time 
went  on,  of  all  that  they  had  ever  thought 
or  believed  or  felt. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  great  final  scene 
at  the  Baptism,  which  shed  its  splendor  over 
the  rite. 

The  virtue  never  left  it  which  entered  it 

then.     Henceforth  it  was  consecrated  into 

a  sacrament,  forever  allied  with  a  Change  of 

Mind  and  of  Life.     Baptism,  as  it  once  de- 

58 


Inaugural  Action  of  Metdnoia  in  the  First  Age. 

fined  the  Metanoia,  was  always  to  define  it. 
For  go  now  from  the  first  three  gospels  into 
the  fourth.  What  do  we  find  there — also  in 
the  outset  of  the  record?  We  hear  our  Lord 
discoursing  of  a  New  Birth — a  birth  from 
Above  (dvuOev),  a  birth  of  the  Spirit,  and 
this  as  accompanying  a  birth  of  water! 

Even  as  it  had  been  with  the  Master,  so 
was  it  to  be  with  the  disciple.  The  full  reve- 
lation of  sonship  in  God  was  to  break  upon 
him,  also,  after  he  had  ascended  through  the 
outward  rite.  Then  the  Spirit  would  meet 
the  Mind  openly,  and  renew  it  day  by  day. 
It  also  was  to  Change  as  it  learned,  as  it  was 
tempted,  and  as  it  suffered. 

Where  is  the  harmony  of  the  gospels,  where 
is  the  harmony  of  the  Gospel  itself,  unless  the 
"  Baptism  of  Metanoia  "  proclaimed  by  John 
the  Baptist  to  the  people  was  the  same  as  the 
"  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit "  announced 
by  Jesus  to  Nicodemus? 

So  here,  in  the  profoundest  of  the  gospels, 
we  have  the  profoundest  exposition  of  the 
word. 


59 


V. 


METANOIA    THE    METHOD    OF    CHRIST'S 
TEACHING. 

WE  are  now  fairly  brought  to  the  moment 
when  Jesus  Himself  began  to  proclaim  and 
to  say,  "  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and  the  King- 
dom of  God  is  at  hand:  Metanoelte!  Take 
upon  you  a  New  Mind,  and  Believe  the  Glad 
Tidings." 

What  a  new  and  concentrated  light  falls 
upon  the  life  of  Christ  if  we  look  upon  it  as 
the  process  or  action  of  creating  the  Meta- 
noia!  With  this  single  idea  in  view  His 
whole  method  comes  definitely  before  us.  It 
was  all  comprised  in  the  terms  of  the  above 
announcement :  "  The  divine  epoch  of  the 
world  has  come!  God  is  now  to  reign  on 
earth!  Heaven  is  all  about  you!  Sin,  sor- 
row, death,  are  no  more!  Peace,  joy,  eter- 
nal life,  are  yours !  The  night  is  far  spent ; 
60 


Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teaching, 

the  day  is  at  hand.  Awake,  awake!  All 
is  changed!  Change  ye!  Believe  not  the 
world ;  believe  Me!  I  bring  you  good  tid- 
ings of  great  joy!" 

Supernatural  as  this  revelation  was,  it  was, 
like  Him  who  brought  it,  subject  to  the  order 
of  nature  in  human  nature  when  delivered 
to  mankind.  That  order,  as  we  have  said, 
is  this :  all  inward  "  change  "  proceeds  from 
outward  "change."  A  change  of  outward 
situation  induces  a  change  of  mental  con- 
sciousness ;  a  change  of  mental  consciousness 
induces  a  change  of  moral  disposition;  a 
change  of  moral  disposition  induces  a  change 
of  outward  life.  Give  a  man  a  new  con- 
sciousness and  he  will  develop  a  new  nature. 

Upon  this  natural  order  of  the  Metanoia 
did  Christ  proceed.  He  first  revealed  a 
change  of  circumstance.  He  filled  the  soul 
with  knowledge  altogether  new.  He  com- 
municated to  it  ideas  and  inspired  it  with 
principles  which  brought  about  it  the  horizon 
of  another  world.  Then,  step  by  step,  came 
the  dispossession  of  the  old  nature  till  it  had 
reached  the  vital  center,  the  seat  of  the  con- 
science and  the  will,  and  then,  step  by  step, 
61 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

the  moral  transformation  began.  It  was  "  the 
expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection."  The 
"  world  "  was  cast  out  like  a  deaf  and  blind 
spirit,  and  the  once  divine  heart  was  left 
cleansed  and  free.  And  this  was  done,  as 
we  say,  by  occupying,  first,  the  intellectual 
nature  of  man,  by  engaging  the  whole  power 
of  his  understanding  with  the  Truth.  But  the 
nature  of  that  truth  was  such  that  it  struck 
through  to  the  heart ;  for  "  truth  "  and  "  right- 
eousness," in  His  mouth,  meant  the  same 
thing.  Like  the  hymn  we  hear,  the  intellec- 
tual process,  however  full,  was  unnoticed  in 
the  greater  fullness  of  the  spiritual  impression 
produced.  It  came  from  Him  on  fire  with 
the  vividness  of  His  own  consciousness,  and 
its  illumination,  as  well  as  its  inspiration,  was 
thrown  through  these  out-looking  windows 
into  the  inmost  chambers  of  the  spirit.  But 
these  intellectual  windows  were  the  first  to 
blaze  under  the  light  that  poured  into  them. 
His  opening  summons  to  the  Metanoia  was 
addressed  to  the  intelligence,  and  without 
an  awakened  intelligence  it  could  not  have 
moved  the  people  as  it  did.  All  His  subse- 
quent preaching  then  became  an  education, 
an  education  by  gradual  revelation.  He  was 
62 


Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teaching. 

known  as  the  "  Teacher."  He  called  His  fol- 
lowers His  "  disciples  " — learners.  "  Every 
one,"  He  said,  "that  hath  learned  of  the 
Father  cometh  unto  Me."  "  Hearken  unto  Me 
every  one  of  you,  and  understand."  "  Per- 
ceive ye  not,  neither  understand  ?  "  "All  things 
that  I  have  heard  of  My  Father  I  have  made 
known  unto  you."  His  constant  formula 
was,  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him 
hear  ! "  which  applied  as  much  to  the  inter- 
est felt  by  the  intelligence  as  to  the  disposi- 
tion that  lay  in  the  will. 

His  mode  of  teaching  involved  almost 
every  form  of  arresting  attention  and  pro- 
ducing an  impression. 

He  portrayed  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
in  parables  of  the  most  diverse  description ; 
some  so  plain  as  to  clear  up  a  whole  situa- 
tion ;  some  so  obscure  as  to  hold  in  reserve 
a  lesson,  of  which  time  would  develop  the 
meaning;  some  with  intimations  so  vast,  so 
stupendous,  that  the  heaven  and  the  earth 
seemed  passing  away. 

He  spoke,  sometimes,  in  startling  enigmas 
which  roused  thought,  conjecture,  specula- 
tion, inquiry;  sometimes  in  language  as 
63 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

startling  for  its  hyperbole,  in  order  to  vivify 
to  the  utmost  an  essential  truth ;  sometimes, 
again,  in  precepts  so  plain  that  the  very  chil- 
dren could  understand  them. 

Sometimes  He  spoke  in  statements  which, 
like  those  to  the  woman  of  Samaria,  widened 
as  into  infinitude  the  local  horizon  about 
Mount  Gerizim  or  Jerusalem;  which,  like 
those  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  revealed 
the  divine  profundities  under  the  law  and 
under  all  human  life. 

He  employed  reasoning  and  argument. 
He  appealed  to  the  imagination ;  He  struck 
indelible  pictures  upon  the  memory. 

He  was  ever  speaking  of  the  "Truth." 
Even  at  the  last  He  declared  to  Pilate  that 
"  to  this  end  was  He  born,  and  for  this  cause 
came  He  into  the  world,  that  He  should 
bear  witness  unto  the  Truth." 

His  whole  endeavor  seemed  to  be  to  de- 
velop the  capacity  for  Belief;  and  when  it 
was  developed  it  took  the  mental-ethical- 
spiritual  name  of  "  Faith  " — another  Greek 
word  elevated  into  a  transcendental  mean- 
ing, and  expressing  the  idea  of  Metanoia  in 
its  highest,  most  concentrated,  most  effectual 
form. 

64 


Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teaching. 

He  used  every  credential  which  He 
brought  with  Him  to  fasten  His  personality 
upon  the  age,  and  to  make  Himself  a  vivid 
and  memorable,  as  well  as  a  lovable,  pres- 
ence forever.  Every  sign  and  wonder  was 
worked  as  much  to  prove  His  origin  and 
authority  as  to  express  His  loving-kindness 
and  tender  mercy. 

He  was  the  Sower  who  went  out  to  sow. 
He  left  in  that  soil  principles  working,  ideas 
germinating,  thoughts  springing,  as  well  as 
feelings  moved  and  affections  stirred,  the  is- 
sues of  which  that  soil  very  imperfectly  com- 
prehended until  the  ripening  moment  had 
come. 

He  threw  a  mystical  shadow  over  life  which 
was  to  deepen  into  an  eclipse  of  all  that  was 
earthly.  He  set  forward  the  boundaries  of 
this  world  into  the  other  world,  and  brought 
into  this  life  the  spirit  of  the  heavenly  life,  the 
spirit  of  eternity  amid  things  temporal.  He 
revealed  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Right, 
the  near  presence  of  the  love  and  of  the  will 
of  God. 

With  His  disciples  it  was  a  constant,  a 
growing  Metanoia.     At  first  they  were  full 
65 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

of  joy,  of  anticipation,  of  triumph.  They 
were  not  to  fast :  the  Bridegroom  was  with 
them.  The  sombre  word  "  repentance  "  were 
sadly  inadequate  to  express  all  that  He  had 
created.  Doubtless,  here  and  there,  some, 
like  Peter,  astonished  by  this  exhibition  of 
power,  fell  down  at  His  knees,  saying,  "  De- 
part from  me;  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O 
Lord;"  or  some,  like  Zaccheus,  also  power- 
fully impressed,  offered  the  fullest  reparation 
for  an  evil  life ;  or  some,  like  the  woman  that 
was  a  sinner,  loved  much  because  they  had 
been  forgiven  much.  Such  results  were  the 
inevitable,  a"s  they  were  the  designed,  conse- 
quence of  His  personal  influence,  and,  sooner 
or  later,  they  were  to  come  upon  all.  But 
the  influence  began  in  the  intellect  awakened  ; 
the  intellect  overwhelmed  with  a  new  percep- 
tion, which  grew  into  a  new  conviction,  into 
a  belief  in  His  authority,  and  a  belief  in 
what  He  revealed. 

And,  as  if  to  indicate  to  His  disciples  that 
the  Metanoia  was  even  then  by  no  means 
complete,  He  told  them  at  the  close  that 
"  He  had  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  them, 
but  that  they  could  not  bear  them  now. 
Howbeit  when  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth, 
66 


Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teaching. 

should  come,  He  would  guide  them  into  all 
Truth."  "He  should  bring  all  things  to 
their  remembrance,  whatsoever  He  Himself 
had  said  unto  them." 

And,  indeed,  the  Metanoia  had  not  fully 
come.  So  little  had  they  comprehended,  so 
much  in  them  still  lay  latent,  that  His  death 
was  a  catastrophe  which  ended  all  their 
hope.  Their  Metanoia  entered  upon  a  new 
stage  when  He  rose  from  the  dead.  Their 
"sorrow  was  turned  into  joy,"  as  He  had 
predicted.  But  even  then  the  consummate 
hour  had  not  come,  .and  even  then  they 
could  not  have  fully  taken  in  His  last  in- 
junction "  that  Metanoia  unto  sending  away 
of  sins  should  be  proclaimed  in  His  name," 
that  they  should  "go  and  make  learners  of 
all  the  nations,  Baptizing  them  in  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Spirit." 

The  Metanoia  was  not  complete  until  the 
hour  when  the  prophecy  of  John  the  Baptist 
was  literally  fulfilled ;  until  the  Christ  Himself 
was,  so  to  speak,  complete;  until  He  came 
again,  "Baptizing  them  in  the  Holy  Spirit 
67 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

and  fire ;  "  until,  as  the  great  Harvester, 
He  thrust  His  winnowing-fork  into  the  har- 
vest He  had  planted,  and  cast  it  against  the 
wind  of  that  Spirit,  thoroughly  to  purge  His 
floor. 

Then,  in  the  outburst  of  that  mighty  wind, 
came  the  Metanoia  complete — complete  so 
far  as  it  was  an  instant  realization — upon  the 
disciples,  upon  the  age.  The  whole  original 
impression  of  Him  revived,  and  a  deeper 
than  that  impression  was  inspired.  The 
world  went  into  shadow.  The  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  was  on  earth.  They  had  "  the  Mind 
of  Christ." 

But  what  was  its  first  manifestation?  A 
public  phenomenon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
There  was  a  vocal  outburst  of  divine  ecstasy. 
Whether  they  spoke  in  languages  or  in  mys- 
tical utterances,  it  was  the  release  of  their 
pent-up  souls  when  the  full  realization  came 
upon  them. 

The  multitude  cried  in  wonder,  as  they 
saw  and  heard,  "  What  meaneth  this  ?  "  or 
in  mockery,  "These  men  are  full  of  new 
wine!"  Their  amazement  and  skepticism 
were  equally  met  by  an  illuminating  speech 
from  Peter :  a  statement  of  facts,  an  argument 
68 


Metanoia  the  Method  of  Christ's  Teaching. 

from  prophecy,  irresistibly  concentrated  upon 
the  event  which  had  shaken  Jerusalem  fifty 
days  before ;  a  speech  which  leaped  from  the 
supreme  Metanoia  of  the  moment  and  carried 
all  its  impalpable  power  into  the  minds  before 
him.  The  same  light  then  broke  upon  them. 

"  Men!  brethren! "  they  exclaimed,  "what 
shall  we  do?  " — the  very  words  of  the  multi- 
tudes to  John  the  Baptist  when  all  this  was 
foreshadowed;  and  then  they  heard  again 
the  burden  of  the  Baptist  and  of  the  Christ : 
"  Mfiravor/aare !  Take  a  New  Mind,  and 
be  Baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ." 

The  same  thing  occurred  when,  shortly 
afterwards,  a  miracle  was  performed.  There 
was  another  convincing  statement,  with  the 
same  exhortation.  Observe  the  antithesis : 

"I  wot  that  through  ignorance  [ayvoiav] 
ye  did  it.  ...  MeravoriaaTe !  Take  a  New 
Mind  therefore,  and  be  converted,  that  your 
sins  may  be  blotted  out,  so  that  [orrw^]  times 
of  refreshing  may  come  from  the  presence 
of  the  Lord." 

How  little  the  repent  of  our  version 
takes  in  the  compass  of  the  counsel!  They 
had  repented  already,  in  the  usual  sense ; 
69 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

they  were  deeply  penitent,  they  were  "pricked 
to  the  heart."  But  Peter  made  them  under- 
stand that  compunction  or  any  other  like 
feeling  was  not  all.  Their  Minds  must  seize 
the  new  situation,  so  that  God  might  send 
Him  who  was  before  proclaimed  to  them) 
Jesus  Christ.  They  were  to  turn  from  igno- 
rance to  knowledge. 


70 


VI. 

THE    METANOIA    OF    ST.    PAUL FAITH    AND 

RENEWAL. 

AND  now  one  other  stage,  which  will  carry 
us  even  deeper  into  the  Scriptural  aspect  of 
this  subject. 

If  ever  there  was  an  instance  of  Metanoia 
under  all  the  conditions  which  could  exhibit 
the  fullest  import  of  the  word  it  was  that  of 
what  is  inadequately  called  the"  conversion  " 
of  St.  Paul. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  Change  of 
Mind  in  a  man  of  such  personal  greatness, 
moral  strength,  and  conspicuous  record  had 
been  brought  about  in  the  sudden,  public  way 
it  was  in  order  to  put  into  a  concentrated 
form,  and  reveal  on  the  grandest  scale,  a  pro- 
cess and  a  fact  which  in  ordinary  cases  could 
not  be  so  visibly  represented.  We  have  here 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

in  colossal  proportions,  and,  potentially,  in  a 
moment  of  time,  the  Metanoia  of  which  all 
Christian  experience  is  made.  That  such  a 
thing  could  and  did  take  place  in  the  case  of 
a  man  of  this  intelligence  has  been  cited  as 
one  of  the  strongest  evidences  of  the  Christian 
religion.  What  he  was  before  the  Change 
we  know : 

First  of  all,  one  of  the  most  richly  endowed 
intellects  and  one  of  the  most  powerful  na- 
tures ever  known  among  men.  Following 
upon  that,  intensified  by  his  proud  Judaism, 
by  his  narrow  Pharisaism,  by  his  profound 
knowledge  of  Jewish  law  and  traditions,  by 
his  devotion  to  the  religion  of  his  fathers,  he 
turned  out  a  zealot  in  the  cause  of  Judaism, 
so  dark,  bigoted,  and  bloody  as  to  make  him 
a  leader  in  the  persecution  of  the  new  faith. 
He  had  proved  impenetrable  to  the  story 
and  teaching  of  Jesus,  to  the  accounts  of 
His  miracles,  even  to  the  signs  and  wonders 
wrought  in  His  name  by  the  apostles. 

But  in  the  very  hour  when  his  Mind  was 
most  turbulent,  vengeful,  and  determined, 
Jesus  meets  him  in  the  way.  As  soon  as  the 
conviction  of  his  error  had  broken  upon  his 
Mind,  as  visibly  as  the  great  light  which  had 
72 


The  Metanoia  of  St.  Paul. 


blinded  his  eyes,  his  first  inquiry  was,  like  all 
previous  disciples,  "What  must  I  do?  " 

"  I  have  appeared  unto  thee  for  this  pur- 
pose," answered  Jesus,  "to  make  thee  a 
minister  and  a  witness  both  of  these  things 
which  thou  hast  seen,  and  of  those  things  in 
the  which  I  will  appear  unto  thee;  delivering 
thee  from  the  people,  and  from  the  Gentiles, 
unto  whom  now  I  send  thee,  to  open  their 
eyes,  and  to  turn  them  from  darkness  to  light." 

"  Whereupon,"  St.  Paul  says,  "  I  was  not 
disobedient  unto  the  heavenly  vision ;  but 
showed  unto  them  that  they  should  Take 
upon  them  a  New  Mind  [fie-arofiv]  and  turn 
to  God,  and  do  works  worthy  of  the  Meta- 
noia [a|m  TTjif  usTavoiag]." 

When  the  scales  had  fallen  from  his  eyes 
his  Mind  beheld  no  other  vision  than  of 
Christ.  He  that  had  then  met  him  was 
thenceforth  ever  before  him.  The  narrow, 
prejudiced, sectarian  Pharisee  was  "changed" 
into  an  apostle  of  Christianity  so  magnifi- 
cent, so  enlightened,  so  large  and  liberal  in 
his  conception  of  it,  that  none  of  his  new 
brethren  could  keep  pace  with  him,  as  even 
all  present  ecclesiasticism  is  in  danger  of 
falling  behind  him. 

73 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Mctdnoia. 

All  the  marks  of  the  Metanoia  are  here : 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  through  circum- 
stance ;  for  when  he  beheld  the  supernatural 
presence  of  the  Lord,  as  actually  risen  from 
the  dead,  the  whole  vision  of  his  error  burst 
upon  him. 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  in  understand- 
ing ;  for  he  spent  three  years  of  solitude  in 
Arabia,  receiving  the  fullest  indoctrination 
from  Christ. 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  by  evolution ; 
for,  with  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him,  he 
now  grasped  entirely  the  transcendent  change 
of  situation,  and  came  forth  able,  above  all 
others,  to  reconcile  the  old  economy  with  the 
new,  to  proclaim  the  advanced  principles  of 
the  Gospel  with  a  profundity  of  spiritual  dis- 
cernment which  no  one  should  ever  exceed, 
and  to  be  the  most  powerful  advocate  Chris- 
tianity should  ever  know. 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  in  disposition ; 
for,  from  the  fierce,  proud,  intolerant,  self-suf- 
ficient son  of  the  law,  he  became  the  patient, 
humble,  compassionate,  affectionate  servant 
of  Christ,  "  all  things  to  all  men." 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  by  development ; 
for  the  same  capacity  for  faith,  for  zeal,  for 
74 


Metanoia  of  St.  Paul. 


force  and  energy,  for  religious  devotion,  was 
now  carried  over  and  enlarged  in  the  interest 
of  a  cause  as  new  and  as  vast  as  the  whole 
just  revealed  purpose  of  God  in  man. 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  by  revolution ; 
for  it  was  a  revolt  from  Judaism  in  its  nar- 
row rabbinical  form,  a  total  break  with  the 
artificial,  superstitious,  selfish  system  under 
which  he  had  been  born  and  bred,  and  a 
leap  into  the  large  spiritual  consciousness  of 
Christ  Himself. 

It  was  the  Mind  changed  before  repen- 
tance set  in,  which  repentance  accompanied, 
which  repentance  intensified,  which  repentance 
helped  to  fill  with  a  due  apprehension  of  the 
cross,  but  of  the  extent  of  whose  growth  in 
its  change,  of  the  extent  of  whose  apprehen- 
sion of  his  Lord,  the  word  "repentance"  in 
its  fullest  theological  acceptation  could  never 
follow,  compass,  or  describe.  Nothing  less 
than  the  word  "  Metanoia  " — or  some  Eng- 
lish expression  that  shall  be  the  full  equiva- 
lent of  the  word — can  compass  or  describe 
it.  For  what  was  its  most  conspicuous, 
foremost  feature  ?  A  profoundly  illumi- 
nated intelligence  followed  by  a  nature  as 
profoundly  penetrated.  The  "  spiritual  man  " 
75 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

was  there ;  the  "  natural  man  "  was  there  no 
longer. 

In  the  light  of  this  word  even  the  most 
unspiritual  mind  cannot  fail  in  some  degree 
of  sympathy  with  St.  Paul's  enthusiasm  in 
his  work,  or  to  understand  the  ecstasy  with 
which  he  regarded  the  person  of  his  Lord,  or 
to  know  what  he  meant  when  he  said  that 
his  "conversation,"  his  daily  life,  was  lived 
in  heaven.  The  spiritual,  so  far  as  this, 
takes  the  look  of  the  natural. 

When  we  open  his  epistles  and  read  them 
from  this  point  of  view,  with  this  word  as  their 
key,  they  all — no  matter  what  their  occasion 
or  what  themes  they  passingly  treat — take  the 
character  of  the  summons  to  the  Metanoia. 
Back  to  this,  in  some  form,  they  always  come. 
He  rings,  as  we  said,  endless  changes  upon 
the  word.  The  thought  of  it  appears  in  in- 
numerable forms  of  expression.  It  would  be 
one  prolonged  and  many-sided  illustration  of 
the  idea  if  we  were  to  quote  from  him  as  pro- 
fusely as  we  would  like.  But  our  space  will 
permit  only  a  selection  of  a  few  passages 
where  the  most  direct  reference  is  made,  and 
where  the  "  noetic  faculty  "  is  also  implied. 

He  said  to  the  Romans :  "  Be  not  con- 
76 


The  Metanoia  of  St.  Paul. 


formed  to  this  world :  but  be  ye  Transformed 
by  the  Renewing  of  the  Mind  [juera//op0oi)<70e 
7^7,  avaKaivutoat  rov  voog,  Rom.  xii.  2]." 

He  said  to  the  Corinthians :  "  We  have  the 
Mind  [i-ouv]  of  Christ  (i  Cor.  ii.  16).  .  .  . 
We  all  ...  are  Transformed  into  the  same 
image  from  glory  to  glory,  even  as  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  (2  Cor.  iii.  18).  .  .  .  If 
any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  New  Creature : 
old  things  are  passed  away ;  behold,  all  things 
are  become  New"  (2  Cor.  v.  17). 

He  said  to  the  Ephesians:  "That  .  .  . 
God.  .  .  .  may  give  unto  you  a  spirit  of  Wis- 
dom [oo(piag]  and  Revelation  in  the  Know- 
ledge [£myv6osi]  of  Him  [Christ] :  the  eyes  of 
your  heart  being  Enlightened ;  that  ye  may 
know,"  etc.  (Eph.  i.  17,  18);  "Henceforth 
walk  not  as  the  Gentiles  also  walk,  in  the  van- 
ity of  their  Mind  fvoo?],  having  the  Under- 
standing [~y  diavoia]  darkened,  being  alien- 
ated from  the  life  of  God  through  the  Igno- 
rance [ayvomv]  that  is  in  them.  .  .  .  But 
ye  have  not  so  Learned  Christ ;  if  so  be  that 
ye  have  heard  Him,  and  have  been  Taught 
in  Him,  even  as  Truth  is  in  Jesus :  that  ye 
put  off  concerning  the  former  manner  of  life, 
the  old  man ;  .  .  .  and  be  Renewed  in  the 
77 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Mctdnoia. 

spirit  of  your  Mind  [Voos]  ;  and  that  ye  put 
on  the  New  Man"  (Eph.  iv.  18-24). 

He  said  to  the  Colossians  :  "  Seeing  that 
ye  have  put  off  the  old  man  with  his  deeds  ; 
and  have  put  on  the  New  Man,  which  is  Re- 
newed in  Knowledge  after  the  image  of  Him 
that  created  him"  (Col.  iii.  9,  10). 

He  said  to  Timothy  :  "The  servant  of  the 
Lord  must  ...  be  ...  apt  to  Teach,  pa- 
tient ;  in  meekness  instructing  those  that  op- 
pose themselves;  if  God  peradventure  will 
give  them  Metanoia  unto  Knowledge  [e/f 
of  the  Truth  "  (2  Tim.  ii.  24,  25). 


But  we  must  now  pass  on  to  an  occasion 
in  which  he  used  the  word  itself,  and  by  force 
of  circumstances  less  in  a  spiritual  than  in  an 
intellectual  and  popular  sense. 

When  he  confronted  the  Stoics  and  Epi- 
cureans in  the  Areopagus,  roused  to  indig- 
nation by  the  evidences  of  image-worship 
around  him,  and  to  quick  perception  of  the 
opportunity  offered  him  by  an  altar  to  an 
Unknown  God  —  to  him  so  near  in  associa- 
tion with  the  Unnamed  God  of  his  own  peo- 
ple, but  to  them  only,  at  the  most,  a  philo- 
sophical dream  —  when,  in  coming  before  such 
78 


The  Metanoia  of  St.  Paul. 


an  audience,  he  had  to  burn  his  Hebrew  ships, 
for  he  could  beat  no  retreat  upon  the  tradi- 
tions of  his  own  religion,  quote  no  Scriptures 
but  those  of  their  own  poets,  and  reason  with 
them  only  upon  their  own  premises;  when, 
if  he  spoke  at  all,  he  must  speak  to  the  in- 
tellect, and  to  an  intellect  which  would  care 
very  little  for  an  appeal  to  the  heart,  and 
not  even  understand  an  allusion  to  "  sin  "  as 
a  moral  alienation;  when  all  his  tact  and 
ingenuity  were  exerted  to  get  uninterrupted 
to  the  "  new  thing  "  they  desired  to  hear  and 
he  wished  to  announce ;  when  he  had  stated 
the  nature  of  the  one  living  and  true  God  in 
a  way  to  command  their  respect,  and  in  a 
way  to  enlarge  their  conception  of  Him  who 
should  remain  no  longer  "  Unknown,"  if  he 
could  reveal  Him  to  their  understanding — 
what  did  he  say?  "  The  times  of  Ignorance 
therefore  God  overlooked ;  but  now  he  com- 
mandeth  men  that  they  should  all  everywhere 
Change  their  Mind  [Meravoetv] ; "  namely, 
unto  the  Knowledge  of  One  who  was  to 
"judge  the  world  in  righteousness." 

Without  question  St.  Paul  spoke  as  near  as 
he  could  to  the  sense  of  classic  Greek  under 
such  Attic  circumstances,  and  we  are  not  jus- 
79 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

tified  in  here  interpreting  the  word  in  any 
other  way.  He  could  not  have  expected 
them  to  put  the  full  construction  upon  it 
which  lay  in  his  own  mind,  and  with  which 
it  must  have  vaguely  rung  in  their  ears  as  it 
came  forth  with  the  tone  of  his  own  intense 
consciousness.  All  that  they  could  have 
understood  was  an  appeal  to  "  change  their 
views";  to  come  to  a  conception  of  the 
Divine  Nature  more  worthy  of  those  who  were 
"  the  offspring  of  God  " ;  to  accept  this  great 
"  knowledge  "  which  he  now  communicated 
in  place  of  the  "  ignorance  "  which  their  altar 
confessed.  The  very  most  that  their  usage 
could  admit  into  the  word  he  had  employed 
was  an  ethical  import,  sometimes,  though 
rarely,  attached  to  it ;  but  it  must  have  been 
in  this  instance  very  dimly  discerned,  if  at  all. 
If  there  was  anything  like  "regret"  to  be 
felt,  it  was,  most  probably,  only  displeasure 
with  themselves  that  they  should  have  been 
so  mistaken.  Certainly  nothing  so  strong  as 
penitence  could  have  been  dreamed  of  by  St. 
Paul.  He  was  intent  upon  something  be- 
yond, to  which  the  intellectual  impression  or 
emotion  he  had  created  would  be  a  stepping- 
stone,  namely,  "the  Man  whom  God  had 
80 


The  Metanoia  of  St.  Paul. 


ordained  " — the  Christ.     For  this,  and  up  to 
this,  he  would  "  Change  their  Mind." * 

How  utterly  inconceivable,  at  any  rate, 
is  a  call  to  repentance,  as  it  is  translated  in 
our  version,  both  the  Old  and  the  New,  in 
the  connection  of  such  an  attempt  to  com- 
mend the  revelation  he  proclaimed  to  the  con- 
fidence and  respect  of  these  speculative  men! 

We  must  leave  to  the  reader  the  further 
examination  of  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment where  "  Metanoia  "  in  some  form  ap- 
pears, and  is  still  rendered  "repentance"  in 
the  New  Version.  Here  they  all  are  in  a 
foot-note,  and  he  can  judge  for  himself 
whether,  in  every  case  (and  in  some  cases 
most  expressly),  a  more  distinct  reference  to 
the  Changed  Mind,  in  the  profound  sense  we 
have  given  the  phrase,  would  not  be  an  im- 
provement upon  the  more  emotional  and  less 
fruitful  idea  suggested  by  the  word  "repen- 
tance" It  will  be  found  used,  in  many  of 
these  instances,  not  in  a  general,  but  in  a 

1  There  is  an  appositeness  between  the  inscription 
ArNQ2Ti2  6ES2  in  the  beginning  of  the  speech,  and 
the  expressions  ayvoia<;  and  fieravoelv  at  the  end,  which 
is  very  significant. 

81 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

special  application,  when  its  great  meaning 
is  curdled,  as  it  were,  into  the  expression  of 
a  single  feeling  repellent  of  sin  under  the 
revelation  of  righteousness;  when  thought, 
perception,  knowledge,  conscience,  penitence, 
and  the  will  are  combined  into  such  a  strong 
revolt  of  the  entire  man  from  an  evil  course 
as  to  change  the  character  of  his  life.  A 
rendering  which  keeps  any  of  these  powerful 
and  necessary  elements  out  of  sight  is  more 
than  an  unfortunate  one.1 

l  According  to  the  text  of  Westcott  and  Hort. 
This  text  has  been  followed  elsewhere  in  this  edition 
of  the  essay  when  there  has  been  a  departure  from  the 
Authorized  Version. 

Meravoiw:  Matt.  iii.  2,  iv.  17,  xi.  20,  21,  xii.  41; 
Mark  i.  15,  vi.  12;  Luke  x.  13,  xi.  32,  xiii.  3,  5,  xv. 

7,  10,  xvi.  30,  xvii.  3,  4;  Acts  ii.  38,  iii.  19,  viii.  22, 
xvii.  30,  xxvi.  20;  2  Cor.  xii.  21 ;  Rev.  ii.  5  (twice), 
16,  21  (twice),  22,  iii.  3,  19,  ix.  20,  21,  xvi.  9,  II. 

Meravoia :  Matt.  iii.  8,  1 1 ;  Mark  i.  4 ;  Luke  iii.  3, 

8,  v.  32,  xv.  7>  xxiv.  47;  Acts  v.  31,  xi.  18,  xiii.  24, 
xix.  4,  xx.  21,  xxvi.  20;  Rom.  ii.  4;  2  Cor.  vii.  9, 
10 ;  2  Tim.  ii.  25  ;  Heb.  vi.  I,  6,  xii.  17;  2  Pet.  iii.  9. 


82 


VII. 

METANOIA    THE    WORD    OF    CHRIST    TO    THE 
PRESENT   AGE. 

IN  all  that  we  have  now  said  we  have 
shown  ourselves  anxious  that,  in  the  trans- 
lated New  Testament,  the  Summons  in  the 
original  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  should  be 
made  to  appear  as  profound  and  significant 
as  it  really  was,  and  thus  be  made  to  unite 
itself  with  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of 
the  present  century  as  keenly  as  it  did  with 
the  first.  We  would  have  it  a  fresh,  liv- 
ing, all-comprehensive,  all-powerful  Sum- 
mons now. 

We  desire  this,  first,  in  order  that  the 
unity  of  the  New  Testament  may  be  seen  to 
lie  in  it  from  the  beginning  as  in  a  germ,  and 
to  branch  and  flower  from  it  in  every  part, 
as  from  a  stem. 

We  desire  this,  next,  for  the  more  impor- 
83 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

tant  and  vital  reason  that  the  ethical  and 
practical  character  of  the  religion  of  Christ 
may  be  revealed  in  its  real  supremacy  over 
the  emotional  theory  which  has  so  long  dis- 
proportionately prevailed. 

But,  above  all,  we  desire  it — above  all, 
from  its  including  these  and  comprehending 
more — because  it  implies  the  use  of  the  entire 
nature  of  man,  intellectual,  moral,  aff  ectional, 
spiritual,  his  human  part  and  his  divine  part, 
in  the  act  of  apprehending  and  appropriat- 
ing the  truth  of  God.  The  whole  Nous  is 
appealed  to,  the  whole  Mind  is  engaged  in 
seeing  Him  who  is  invisible,  and  in  doing 
His  will. 

For  it  is  now  the  unhappy  fact  that  the 
Christian  religion  is  so  specifically  applied  to 
one  portion  of  this  Mind  and  to  one  state  of 
it  that  if  the  requisition  were  strictly  insisted 
upon  as  a  standard  and  test,  many  persons 
of  the  purest  character  and  highest  princi- 
ple would  be  denied  the  name  of  Christian, 
though  palpably  actuated  by  the  faith  and 
spirit  of  Christ.  The  penitential  condition 
is  not  all,  however  much  it  may  be.  The  rec- 
ognition of  Christ  may  spring  from  a  wider 
surface  and  even  a  deeper  principle  than 


The  Word  of  Christ  to  the  Present  Age. 

that  one  agonized  nerve  in  the  retina  of  the 
soul. 

"  METANOEITE!  "  It  is  a  generous  word, 
looking  outwardly  from  the  life  that  now  is 
to  that  which  is  to  come.  Let  us  have  its 
equivalent  in  gospel  and  epistle  wherever 
it  appears.  Let  it  speak  to  this  age,  at  least, 
in  full,  not  muffled,  articulation — to  this  age 
with  its  wide  speculation  upon  the  mystery 
of  being,  with  its  agnostic  revolt  from  the  re- 
ligion that  is  preached,  with  its  critical  study 
of  the  historic  Christ,  and  yet  latent  disposi- 
tion to  believe  in  Him. 

"  Metanoeite ! "  It  is  time  that  the  Herald 
uttered  it  again  as  He  uttered  it  once.  It 
bears  to  us  the  all-necessary  message  of  con- 
tradiction and  the  all-necessary  announce- 
ment of  a  revolution.  It  brings  with  it  the 
true  and  everlasting  tidings — always  news 
to  blind  and  mortal  men — that  the  apparent 
conditions  of  this  life  are  the  illusion  of  flesh 
and  sense,  and  that  the  real  conditions  of  life 
are  the  very  reverse  of  what  we  are  prone 
to  think  and  believe.  The  Eternal  and  the 
Spiritual  are  all ;  the  temporal  and  the  mate- 
rial are  but  the  shadows  of  that  substance. 
85 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnota. 

It  were  a  bold  word  from  any  but  a  divine 
mouth,  we  should  say,  and  yet  the  human 
tongue  has  been  uttering  it,  virtually,  all  along 
in  another  sphere.  What  has  been  the  procla- 
mation of  Science  in  her  own  material  world 
but  "  Metanoelte!  Change  your  Mind  from 
the  near  testimony  of  Sense  to  the  distant  wit- 
ness of  Discovery  " : 

Sense  says,  "  The  sun  rises  in  the  east  and 
revolves  about  the  earth ;  the  earth  is  the  cen- 
tre of  the  celestial  sphere."  But  Science — 
Knowledge — proclaims  a  contradiction,  and, 
with  it,  a  revolution :  "  It  is  the  earth  that 
goes  round  the  sun ;  the  sun  is  but  one  of 
that  starry  host ;  the  blue  firmament  melts 
into  illimitable  space;  it  is  an  illuminated 
universe  that  lies  out  there,  in  which  this  ap- 
parently ponderous  globe  floats  like  an  atom 
in  a  sunbeam." 

So  Science,  an  echo  of  the  divine  voice, 
has  enlarged,  reversed,  the  whole  conscious- 
ness of  man.  Her  Metanoia  has  been  pro- 
claimed not  only  here,  but  everywhere  in  her 
material  field.  Whithersoever  she  has  gone, 
nature  has  inverted  its  apparent  order,  its 
phenomena  have  widened  out  into  princi- 
ples that  were  once  unknown,  and  the  first 
86 


The  Word  of  Christ  to  the  Present  Age. 

human  impression  of  them  has  had  to  be 
revoked. 

It  is  an  image,  a  parallel,  of  the  Christian 
faith.  The  whole  universe  of  the  Spiritual  is 
likewise  being  revealed  to  the  knowledge  of 
mankind.  Time  is  declared  to  be  of  Eternal 
moment,  and  death  the  fullness  of  Life.  We 
may  discern  the  character  of  that  other  sphere 
by  its  inverse  relation,  point  for  point,  to  this. 

Given,  then,  we  say,  the  intellectual  realiza- 
tion of  this  to  men,  their  moral  consciousness 
will  rise  to  it,  their  spiritual  nature  will  en- 
large with  it,  their  hearts  and  their  lives  will 
deepen  to  the  measure  of  it.  They  will  re- 
volt more  and  more  from  sin  and  from  the 
world. 

This  is  conversion  indeed ;  this  is  the  Birth 
from  Above. 

We  can  now  imagine  how,  under  such  a 
conception,  the  pulpit  would  awake  to  the 
grandeur  of  its  work,  how  the  Church  would 
awake  to  the  grandeur  of  her  cause.  The 
themes  of  the  one,  the  methods  of  the  other, 
would  move  with  splendor  and  with  power  to 
one  definite  and  mighty  end :  the  Summon- 
87 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia, 

ing  of  mankind  to  the  Metanoia,  this  New 
Mind,  and  the  announcement  of  everything 
on  the  divine  side  of  life  which  would  in- 
spire and  create  it. 

For  we  are  just  on  the  verge  of  a  great 
epoch.  All  this  intellectual  activity  in  the 
material  world  is  surely  working  towards  a 
moment  of  reaction  when  the  same  intensity 
of  movement  will  turn  the  other  way,  and  the 
universal  demand  will  be  for  a  knowledge 
of  the  Spiritual.  The  voice  of  material  Sci- 
ence, crying  in  the  wilderness,  will  be  found 
to  have  been  preparing  the  way  for  this.  It 
will  turn  out  to  have  been  uttering  a  word 
which  has  roused  the  "  expectation  "  of  this 
age.  Out  of  all  this  agnostic  dust  and  ashes 
shall  mount  again  the  cry,  "  Metanoelte!  for 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand." 

Let  us  see  to  it  that  neither  the  Bible,  the 
Church,  nor  the  pulpit  gives,  in  that  great  re- 
vealing day,  an  uncertain  sound. 

But  our  space  is  exhausted ;  yet  one  word 
more  to  carry  our  theme  to  its  most  practical 
and  highest  point. 

We  have  said  all  when  we  say  that "  Meta- 
noia "  and  "  Revelation "  are  correlative 
88 


The  Word  of  Christ  to  the  Present  Age. 

terms,  one  always  implying  the  other.  As 
large,  therefore,  as  we  understand  the  Reve- 
lation to  be,  we  must  understand  the  Meta- 
noia  to  be.  They  are  reciprocal,  as  they 
develop,  in  character  and  degree. 

In  their  meeting  and  blending  within  us, 
then,  we  become  partakers  of  the  Divine 
Nature  and  are  saved.  What  begins  with 
being  a  "  Change  of  Mind  toward  God " 
deepens  and  broadens,  as  our  nature  turns 
all  its  disk  that  way,  into  that  supreme  reflec- 
tion of  God  in  the  soul,  "faith  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ." 

Faith  is  the  Metanoia  touched  to  the  quick. 
Faith  is  the  Metanoia  when  it  has  reached 
the  vital  fibers  of  our  being ;  "  the  substance 
of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen " ;  "  God,  who  commanded  the 
light  to  shine  out  of  darkness,  shining  into  our 
hearts,  to  give  the  light  of  the  Knowledge  of 
the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." 

So  it  is  the  Metanoia  which  is  bearing  us 
heavenwards  in  Him.  "  We  are  Transformed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory." 
"  We  were  sometime  darkness,  but  now  are 
we  light  in  the  Lord."  "  We  press  toward  the 
mark  for  the  prize  of  the  Upward  Calling  of 
89 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

God  in  Christ  Jesus."  More  and  more  is 
the  earthly  nature  dissolving  away  and  re- 
leasing the  heavenly  one ;  deeper  and  deeper 
is  the  transfiguration  working  within ;  and  it 
will  not  cease  even  when  we  have  passed  the 
gates  of  death,  and 

"  Heaven  opens  on  our  eyes ;  our  ears 
With  sounds  seraphic  ring!" 

What  will  be  the  inburst  of  another  world 
upon  the  soul  but  the  Change  of  Changes, 
the  supreme  Metanoia  of  the  Eternal  Life! 


90 


THE  VIEW   OF   MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

WE  are  glad  to  add  the  testimony  of  still  another  in- 
dependent scholar  to  the  primary  potency  of  the  great 
Greek  expression  which  opens  the  New  Testament. 

This  time  the  claim  for  it  is  entirely  ethical ;  the 
noetic  element  is  not  foremost,  but  follows  an  inward 
awakening  of  the  moral  consciousness,  although  that 
is  first  brought  about  by  perception  and  thought. 
This  striking  conception  of  the  word  comes  from 
Matthew  Arnold,  an  equal  master  in  Greek  with  De 
Quincey,  gifted  with  the  same  philosophic  and  theo- 
logical insight,  and  a  great  Biblical  student  besides. 
In  the  case  of  De  Quincey  the  view  was  a  passing 
burst  of  inspiration  over  the  word,  and  he  makes  no 
more  of  it.  In  the  case  of  Arnold  it  comes  in — 
though  also  quite  episodically — as  a  part  of  a  pro- 
found study  into  the  genius  of  Christianity  as  it  arose 
in  Israel  under  the  teaching  of  Christ.  But  he  has 
an  especial  point  to  make — a  protest  against  the  sub- 
sequent metaphysical  and  dogmatic  perversion  of  the 
original  Semitic  simplicity  of  Christian  truth,  the 
product  of  what  he  calls  the  "Aryan  genius" — and 
it  therefore  does  not  fall  in  with  his  plan  to  make  as 
much  as  he  might  have  done  either  of  the  intellectual 
or  the  spiritual  evolution  of  the  principle  so  fully 
embodied,  as  we  believe,  in  the  expression.  The 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

working  of  both  is  strongly  suggested,  but,  it  seems 
to  us,  the  vital  and  causative  connection  between  what 
he  calls  the  "method"  of  Jesus — i.e.,  Metanoia — 
and  what  he  calls  His  "secret" — the  utter  renun- 
ciation of  the  lower  self  which  culminated  in  "  the 
word  of  the  cross  " — is  not  as  vividly  drawn  out  as 
it  might  have  been. 

But  the  point  of  interest  now  is  his  passing  allu- 
sion to  our  word.  In  putting  it  here  in  connection 
with  that  of  De  Quincey  we  show  not  only  the  mag- 
nificent sweep  of  its  meaning,  from  the  ethical  to  the 
intellectual  and  back,  but  how  completely  the  idea  of 
repentance  is  thrown  out  of  all  association  with  it  by 
two  great  scholars  and  thinkers  whose  imaginations 
had  not  been  discolored  by  any  theological  preposses- 
sion and  tradition,  and  who,  as  born  and  bred  Eng- 
lish churchmen,  knew  exactly  what  "repentance" 
was  understood  theologically  to  mean.  The  follow- 
ing passages  are  from  "  Literature  and  Dogma" : 

"  To  have  the  thoughts  in  order  as  to  certain  mat- 
ters was  conduct.  This  was  the  '  method '  of  Jesus  : 
setting  up  a  great  unceasing  inward  movement  of  at- 
tention and  verification  in  matters  which  are  three 
fourths  of  human  life  (righteousness'),  where  to  see 
true  and  to  verify  is  not  difficult.  ,  .  .  Watch  care- 
fully what  passes  within  you,  that  you  may  obey  the 
voice  of  conscience.  .  .  .  This,  we  say,  is  the 'method' 
of  Jesus.  To  it  belongs  His  use  of  that  important 
word  which  in  the  Greek  is  Metanoia.  We  translate 
it  '  repentance,'  a  mourning  and  lamenting  over  our 
sins ;  and  we  translate  it  wrong.  Of  '  Metanoia,'  as 
Jesus  used  the  word,  the  lamenting  one's  sins  was  a 
92 


TJie  View  of  Matthew  Arnold. 

small  part;  the  main  part  was  something  far  more 
active  and  fruitful,  the  setting  Tip  an  immense  new 
inward  movement  for  obtaining  the  rule  of  life.  And 
'  Metanoia, '  accordingly,  is  a  change  of  the  inner  man. 

"  Mention  and  recommendation  of  this  inwardness 
there  often  was,  we  know,  in  prophet  or  psalmist ; 
but  to  make  mention  of  it  was  one  thing,  to  erect  it 
into  a  positive  method  was  another.  Christianity  has 
made  it  so  familiar  that  to  give  any  freshness  to  one's 
words  about  it  is  now  not  easy ;  but  to  its  first  re- 
cipients it  was  abundantly  fresh  and  novel.  It  was 
the  introduction,  in  morals  and  religion,  of  the  famous 
Know  thyself  of  the  Greeks  ;  and  this  among  a  people 
deeply  serious,  but  also  wedded  to  moral  and  religious 
routine,  and  singularly  devoid  of  flexibility  and  play 
of  mind.  For  them  it  was  a  revolution.  .  .  .  This 
is  the  true  line  of  religion ;  it  was  the  line  of  Jesus. 
To  work  the  renovation  needed  He  concentrated  His 
efforts  upon  a  method  of  inwardness,  of  taking  coun- 
sel of  conscience."  (Page  174.) 

"  Christ's  new  and  different  way  of  putting  things 
was  the  secret  of  His  succeeding  where  the  prophets 
could  not.  .  .  .  He  put  things  in  stick  a  way  that 
His  hearers  were  led  to  take  each  rule  or  fact  of  con- 
duct by  its  inward  side,  its  effect  upon  the  heart  and 
character;  then  the  reason  of  the  thing,  the  meaning 
of  what  had  been  mere  matter  of  blind  rule,  flashed 
upon  them.  .  .  .  The  hardest  rule  of  conduct  came  to 
appear  to  them  infinitely  reasonable  and  natural,  and 
therefore  infinitely  prepossessing."  (Page  94.) 

' '  While  the  Old  Testament  says,  '  Attend  to  con- 
duct,' the  New  Testament  says,  '  Attend  to  the  feel- 
93 


The  Great  Meaning  of  Metdnoia. 

ings  and  dispositions  whence  conduct  proceeds ! '  And 
as  attending  to  conduct  had  very  much  degenerated 
into  deadness  and  formality,  attending  to  the  springs 
of  conduct  was  a  revelation,  a  revival  of  intuitive  and 
fresh  perceptions,  a  touching  of  morals  with  emotion. 
.  .  .  Man  came  under  a  new  dispensation,  and  made 
with  God  a  second  covenant."  (Page  96.) 

"  At  the  Christian  era  .  .  .  the  time  had  come /or 
inwardness  and  self-construction — a  time  to  last  till 
the  self-construction  is  fully  achieved."  (Page  101.) 

It  will  be  noticed  that  while  De  Quincey,  taking 
the  summons  "  Metanoeite  "  as  a  word  to  the  whole 
world  in  all  ages,  gives  rein  to  the  whole  intellectual 
consciousness,  Arnold  keeps  it  within  its  original 
bounds  as  addressed  peculiarly  to  Israel,  and  ad- 
dressed not  so  much  at  first  to  the  intellect  of  Israel 
as — through  a  wondrous  tact  in  teaching — to  the  latent 
spiritual  consciousness,  the  intellect  then  awakening 
to  the  rationale  of  the  law.  But  this  double  witness 
of  opposite  minds  from  opposite  directions  to  the  same 
philological  profundity  in  the  word  is  very  impressive. 


THE  ECLIPSE    OF  MET^NOIA   BY 
PCENITENTIA. 


I. 


AN  IMPOSSIBLE  EXPEDIENT  TO  END  IT:  "RE- 
PENTANCE "  TO  BE  MADE  TO  MEAN 
METANOIA. 

THE  suggestion  of  the  theme  of  this  Addi- 
tional Essay  came  about  in  the  following 
way : 

During  a  recent  residence  in  London  we 
saw  a  notice  in  an  American  Church  paper 
of  a  kind  reference  to  the  essay  on  Metanoia, 
by  Dr.  Brooke  Foss  Westcott,  which  seemed 
to  indicate  an  agreement  with  the  view  we 
had  taken.  As  Dr.  Westcott  (now  the  Bishop 
of  Durham,  but  at  the  time  Canon  of  West- 
minster, and  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity, 
Cambridge)  had  been  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished and  influential  of  the  scholars  en- 
95 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pxnitentia. 

gaged  upon  the  revision  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  had  been  especially  prominent  in 
furnishing  the  Greek  text  which  formed  the 
groundwork  of  the  New  Version,  we  had  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  the  reference  might  be 
accompanied  with  some  allusion  to  the  action 
of  the  revisers  on  the  rendering  of  Merdvoia. 
But  even  aside  from  that,  we  felt  that  any 
expression  of  assent,  however  qualified,  in 
coming  from  such  an  authority,  would  carry 
with  it  a  weight  and  a  consequence  that 
would  command  the  highest  respect. 

A  note  of  inquiry  elicited  this  courteous 
reply : 

"  6  SCROPE  TERRACE, 
"  CAMBRIDGE,  November  19,  1887. 

"  There  was  a  reference  to  your  essay  in  a 
paper  on  the  Revised  Version,  in  the  '  Expos- 
itor.' I  have  not  a  copy  of  the  magazine  at 
hand,  but  I  think  it  was  in  the  paper  which 
appeared  in  August. 

"  I  intended  to  say  that  you  had  brought 
out  with  singular  power  and  truth  the  mean- 
ing of  Meravoia,  while  I  could  not  see  that 
the  translation  could  be  modified. 

"  The  preacher  and  the  scholar  must  trans- 
figure repentance,  even  z&  fides  and  gratia  have 
96 


An  Impossible  Expedient  to  End  It. 

been  transfigured.     In  this  work  your  essay 
will,  I  trust,  be  of  eminent  service." 

The  above  extract  gives  all  of  the  reply 
that  refers  to  the  essay,  and  is  introduced 
here  because  it  adds  materially  to  the  force 
of  one  of  the  remarks  in  the  passage  from  the 
"  Expositor,"  which  will  be  found  below. 

This  admirable  statement,  covering  so 
briefly  and  yet  so  comprehensively  the  whole 
question,  appears  in  one  of  a  series  of  papers 
entitled  "  '  Some  Lessons  of  the  Revised  Ver- 
sion of  the  New  Testament,'  by  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor B.  F.  Westcott,  D.D.,  D.C.L.,  Canon 
of  Westminster"  (August,  1887,  p.  86). 

As  the  passage  is  in  the  form  of  a  foot-note, 
and  bears  no  connection  with  anything  in  the 
text,  it  was  apparently  written  in  the  proof 
after  our  essay  had  been  read.  The  matter 
could  hardly  have  suggested  itself  otherwise, 
as  there  had  been  no  change  in  the  transla- 
tion of  Merdvota,  and  therefore  no  occasion 
for  discussion  of  the  subject.  The  statement 
has  an  especial  interest,  therefore,  not  only 
as  having  been  drawn  out  by  the  essay,  but 
97 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  P&nitentia. 

also  as  conveying  the  mind  of  the  revisers  on 
the  question  of  the  rendering  "repentance" 
If  it  does  not  explain  their  silence  in  passing 
over  it,  it  suggests  their  difficulty  in  dealing 
with  it.  The  passage  is  as  follows : 

"  One  most  important  group  of  words,  ren- 
dered in  the  Authorized  Version  'repent] 
'repentance1  (^eravoelv,  fierdvoia,  fJErape- 
XeoOcu),  offered  great  difficulties  in  transla- 
tion. 

"The  first  two  Greek  words  (^eravoelv, 
[isrdvoia)  describe  characteristically,  in  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament,  a  general 
change  of  mind,  which  becomes  in  its  fullest 
development  an  intellectual  and  moral  regen- 
eration ;  the  latter  (fj,ETaneheo6ai)  expresses  a 
special  relation  to  the  past,  a  feeling  of  regret 
for  a  particular  action,  which  may  be  deep- 
ened into  remorse. 

"  It  was  of  paramount  importance  to  keep 
one  rendering  for  the  former  words,  which 
are  key-words  of  the  gospel,  and  it  was  im- 
possible to  displace  'repent]  'repentance] 
which,  though  originally  inadequate,  are 
capable  of  receiving  the  full  meaning  of  the 
original. 

98 


An  Impossible  Expedient  to  End  It. 

"  No  one  satisfactory  term  could  be  found 
for  fjLETaniteaOai.  In  the  passage  where  it  oc- 
curs in  the  same  context  with  uerdvoia  it  has 
been  adequately  rendered  by  'regret '  (2  Cor. 
vii.  8  ff.) ;  and  elsewhere  the  limited  appli- 
cation of  the  feeling  has  been  indicated  by 
the  reflexive  rendering  'repent  one's  self1 — 
never  '  repent "  absolutely  (Matt.  xxi.  29,  32, 
xxvii.  3 ;  Heb.  vii.  21);  yet  '  without  repen- 
tance' (djti£TC|ue/l7/TOf)  (Rom.  xi.  29)  is  un- 
changed. 

"  Dr.  T.  Walden  has  expounded  the  apos- 
tolic force  of  perdvoia  with  great  power  and 
truth  in  an  essay  on  '  The  Great  Meaning  of 
the  Word  "  Metanoia,"  Lost  in  the  Old  Ver- 
sion, Unrecovered  in  the  New '  (New  York, 
1882);  but  he  has  overlooked  the  fact  that 
the  idea  of  repentance,  like  that  of  fierdvoia 
itself,  can  be  transfigured  by  Christian  use, 
and  that  the  force  of  words  is  not  limited 
by  their  etymology." 


99 


II. 

Merdvoia  TRANSFIGURED  GREEK. 

WE  are  scarcely  prepared  to  admit  that 
we  overlooked  either  of  these  points. 

As  to  the  first — "  That  the  idea  of  repen- 
tance, like  that  of  Meravom  itself,  can  be  trans- 
figured by  Christian  use." 

The  " idea  of  repentance"  it  seems  to  us, 
is  so  deeply  lined  in  the  word  "  repentance  " 
that  the  physiognomy  of  the  term  is  fixed  be- 
yond any  power  of  essential  alteration.  Its 
intense  look  of  sorrow  may  be  and  has  been 
softened  by  Christian  use  into  the  expression 
of  a  pensive  sense  of  unworthiness  and  guilt, 
and  of  a  consequent  mental  determination 
which  changes  the  character,  the  conduct, 
and  the  life ;  but  the  "  fashion  of  its  counte- 
nance "  cannot  be  "altered  "further  than  this, 
nor  can  its  "  raiment  become  white  and  daz- 


Metdnoia  Transfigured  Greek. 

zling,"  even  as  Merdvoia  was  "  transfigured  " 
when  it  stood  on  the  "  high  mountain  apart " 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  its  "face  did 
shine  as  the  sun,"  and  its  "  garments  became 
white  as  the  light." 

The  analogy  suggested  by  the  event  which 
is  so  sacredly  connected  with  the  thought  of 
"  transfiguration  "  is  here  so  true  to  the  fact 
that  we  cannot  but  employ  the  force  of  the 
allusion. 

Now  every  Christian  idea  was  "  described 
so  characteristically  in  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament"  that  any  word  taken  from 
common  use  to  represent  it  was  heightened 
even  to  heaven  in  its  meaning. 

And  it  was  especially  in  the  nature  of  a 
Greek  word  to  bear  such  a  transcendental- 
ization.  Indeed,  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
Greek  was  made  the  vehicle  of  the  Gospel 
not  only  because  it  was  historically  so  oppor- 
tune, but  because  it  was  philologically  so 
available ;  and  no  other  of  the  three  repre- 
sentative tongues  that  were  heard  around  the 
cross  could  have  uttered  the  message  of  the 
cross  so  well. 

The  Jew  arraigned   the  Christ   and  the 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Po&nitentia. 

Roman  erected  the  cross;  both  were  char- 
acteristically foremost  on  that  ground;  but 
to  neither  of  them  was  intrusted  "  the  word 
of  the  cross,"  which  was  to  go  into  all  lands 
and  down  to  all  ages. 

The  Jew  was  as  dumb  as  Zacharias  was 
when  he  tried  to  give  the  benediction.  He 
had  lost  his  prophetic  faith,  as  he  had  lost  his 
Old  Testament  tongue. 

The  Roman  could  only  show  "  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them." 
His  language  was  their  law,  the  regulating 
outcome  of  the  same  genius  that  had  con- 
quered them.  It  reflected  the  practical, 
material  precision  of  his  mind,  but  it  was  not, 
it  never  could  be,  except  by  infusion  from 
without,  elastic  to  the  highest  expression  of 
spiritual  ideas.  It  was  not,  it  never  could 
be,  even  under  inspiration  from  above,  equal 
to  the  adequate  divine  utterance  of  the  truth 
whose  "  Kingdom  was  not  of  this  world." 

Most  remarkable,  most  significant  was  it, 
then,  that  the  commission  to  reveal  that  truth 
was  laid  upon  the  idealizing  tongue  of  the 
Greek;  while  the  commission  to  order  the 
Kingdom,  to  give  direction  to  its  mechanism, 
and  to  give  names  to  its  appointments,  was 

102 


Metdnoia  Transfigured  Greek. 

assumed  by  the  methodizing  tongue  of  the 
Roman. 

Take  now  the  words  before  us,  Meravom 
and  Repentance,  which  Bishop  Westcott  asso- 
ciates under  what  we  may  understand  as  the 
metaphor  of  transfiguration.  They  are  thor- 
oughly representative.  The  one  is  the  in- 
augurating word  of  the  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment, the  other  is  the  inaugurating  word  of 
its  Latin  translation;  and  in  its  Latin  form 
(Pcenitentia]  it  is,  according  to  the  Latin 
mind,  a  precise  equivalent  of  the  Greek. 

Merdvoia  is  a  word  of  classic  origin  and 
usage,  but  of  extraordinary  scriptural  devel- 
opment. A  process  of  transfiguration,  after 
the  sacred  analogy  we  are  thinking  of,  did 
actually  take  place  in  it.  The  change  in  our 
Lord,  as  described  by  the  evangelists,  was  an 
outburst  of  inward  radiance.  Light  did  not 
fall  upon  Him.  //  came  from  within  Him. 
It  was  His  own — the  latent  effulgence  in  His 
human  nature  of  His  divine  nature,  prophetic 
of  the  glory  that  was  about  to  be  revealed  in 
Him. 

In  like  manner  the  first  word  used  of  Him, 
the  first  word  used  by  Him,  according  to 
103 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia, 

these  evangelists,  the  word  which  opened 
His  Kingdom  when  it  was  at  hand,  Meravom, 
rose,  through  a  like  inward  capacity  for  ut- 
terance, into  a  word  of  light-giving  power. 
It  was  "  transfigured  "  indeed.  It  turned  out 
to  be  an  anticipation,  in  a  single  compressed 
expression,  of  the  whole  rationale  of  Chris- 
tianity as  that  new  faith  was  afterwards  un- 
folded in  the  New  Testament.  It  held  the 
whole  idea  and  method  of  the  coming  reve- 
lation in  germ.  It  contained  the  principle 
which  made  the  religion  of  Christ  absolutely 
original — the  principle  of  the  radical  renewal 
of  the  nature  of  man  under  the  working  of  a 
Knowledge  revealed  to  him  from  above,  under 
the  operation  of  a  Spirit  which  came  to  him 
from  above ;  through  which  Knowledge  and 
through  which  Spirit  his  nature  was  set  free 
to  do  spontaneously,  and  not  by  legal  regula- 
tion, all  that  it  ought  to  do :  "  his  flesh  being 
subdued  to  the  spirit,"  "sin  could  have  no 
dominion  over  him:  for  he  was  not  under 
law,  but  under  grace."  "There  was  there- 
fore now  no  condemnation  to  them  that  were 
in  Christ  Jesus.  For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of 
Life  in  Christ  Jesus  made  men  free  from  the 
law  of  sin  and  death." 
104 


Metdnoia  Transfigured  Greek. 

Hence  Merdvoia  was  the  "key-word  of  the 
Gospel,"  as  Bishop  Westcott  finely  says.  It 
opened  to  and  potentially  entered  into  every- 
thing. No  door  called  by  any  other  name, 
such  as  "  faith,"  no  chamber  known  by  any 
other  name,  such  as  "  renewal,"  was  beyond 
the  application  of  this  master  key. 

Turn  now  to  the  expression  which  has 
undertaken  to  supply  its  place  both  in  the 
proclamation  and  in  the  operation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

"Repentance  "  is  a  word  of  classical  Latin 
origin  and  of  Latin  theological  and  ecclesi- 
astical descent.  The  core  of  it  is  not  mind, 
but  pain.  The  note  of  it  is  not  of  emancipa- 
tion, but  of  condemnation.  The  scope  of  it 
is  not  spiritual,  but  juridical.  The  working 
of  it  is  not  joyful,  but  sorrowful.  Its  face 
is  turned  in  horror  towards  sin,  not  in  rap- 
ture towards  righteousness.  It  is  a  way  to 
righteousness,  but  by  the  way  of  retreat.  It 
flees  the  evil  in  fear  of  "penalty" — of  the  puni- 
tive action  of  God  or  of  its  own  conscience. 
In  its  effective  operation  it  can  take  hold  of 
the  Mind,  change  the  mental  attitude,  deter- 
mine the  mental  purpose,  but  it  can  never 
105 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

alone  renew  the  whole  spiritual  constitution 
of  the  Mind.  It  may  be  the  beginning  of 
amendment  of  life,  but  is  not  potential  to 
the  consummation  of  life.  It  is  retrospec- 
tive, and  it  leads  to  introspection,  often  to  in- 
tense spiritual  self-consciousness,  often  to  the 
most  humble  gratitude  to  God  for  salvation 
through  Christ.  In  the  awakening  of  Mera- 
voia  it  is  always  at  hand,  a  powerful  phase 
of  it,  an  inevitable  incident  of  it,  a  helpful,  if 
not  encouraging,  attendant  upon  it. 

The  Latin  instinct  amounted  to  insight 
when  it  made  so  much  of  pcenitentia  as  an 
element  of  Merdvoia,  but  the  instinct  over- 
shot the  insight  when  in  aiming  at  the  one  it 
lost  sight  of  the  other.  All  Christians  have 
adopted  the  excellent  word,  because,  so  far 
as  it  goes,  it  is  a  true  word ;  and  the  above, 
we  believe,  is  an  accurate  account  of  its  theo- 
logical acceptation  among  us. 

But  can  it  be  "  transfigured,"  even  till  it  is 
as  radiant  as  the  word  which  illumined  the 
face  of  Christ  in  the  beginning,  and  illumined 
all  His  teaching  and  the  teaching  of  His  apos- 
tles to  the  end?  Has  it  any  interior  capacity 
to  develop  such  a  new  transformation?  On 
the  contrary,  will  it  not  prove  utterly  intrac- 
106 


Metdnoia  Transfigured  Greek. 

table  under  such  a  strain  against  its  grain? 
We  can  imagine  it  disguised,  but  never  trans- 
figured. We  can  imagine  it  glowing  as  with 
phosphorus,  but  never  with  genuine  light. 
We  can  imagine  it  raised  to  such  a  power 
by  a  sort  of  conjuration,  but  what  a  mere 
apparition  it  would  be !  Who  of  us  can  con- 
ceive of  a  word  so  intrinsically  dark  ever  pass- 
ing itself  off  as  conveying  a  conception  so 
bright  and  so  noble  as  this: — "a  general 
Change  of  Mind,  which  becomes  in  its  fullest 
development  an  intellectual  and  moral  Regen- 
eration "? 


107 


III. 

"REPENTANCE"  PERSISTENT  LATIN. 

LET  us  now  turn  to  the  other  point  which 
we  are  also  hardly  ready  to  admit  that  we 
overlooked — "  that  the  force  of  words  is  not 
limited  by  their  etymology." 

This  is  said,  of  course,  in  the  interest  of 
the  idea  that  "repentance"  can  be  made  to 
express  the  meaning  of  Meravom  by  ignoring 
the  origin  and  usage  of  the  Latin-English 
word. 

If  now,  we  follow  out  the  line  of  this  sug- 
gestion, we  shall  be  led  into  a  more  positive 
exposure  of  its  claims. 

Our  language  is  full  of  words  which  once 
possessed  a  signification  that  is  now  extinct, 
and  which  have  since  taken  up  an  unlimited 
range  of  application  because  of  their  inde- 
pendence of  all  etymology.  Our  dictionaries 
are  overrun  with  such  hermit-crabs,  occupy- 
108 


"Repentance  "  Persistent  Latin. 

ing  and  dragging  about  the  shells  of  words 
whose  primary  meanings  have  long  ago  out- 
grown or  abandoned  them.  But  pcenitentia 
has  never  been  one  of  this  sort.  It  has  never 
exhibited  any  such  facility  in,  or  even  any 
tendency  to,  shedding  its  shell.  On  the  con- 
trary, its  whole  history  shows  that  it  has  been 
endowed  with  an  extraordinary  determina- 
tion to  hold  on  to  its  original  meaning,  and 
as  extraordinary  a  capacity  to  accommodate 
itself  to  all  circumstances,  without  forgetting 
tJie  idea  out  of  which  it  was  made  and  the  end 
tinto  which  it  was  appointed.  If  there  ever 
was  a  word  which  has  been  as  phenomenal 
for  persistency  in  preserving  its  type,  in  both 
outer  form  and  inner  life,  as  other  words 
have  been  phenomenal  for  the  curious  re- 
sults of  a  willing  variation  from  what  they 
once  were,  it  is  this  very  word,  which  we 
know  so  well  in  its  English  expression  as 
"  repentance" 

It  resembles,  as  we  recall  its  long  career, 
that  famous  species  of  the  nautilus  which, 
from  the  outset,  seems  to  be  endowed  with 
an  instinct  of  predestination.  The  creature 
simply  enlarges  itself  under  the  necessity  of 
development  that  is  upon  it,  without  abandon- 
109 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

ing  anything  that  ever  essentially  belonged  to 
it.  As  it  outgrows  its  quarters  it  builds  on  one 
chamber  after  another  to  accommodate  the 
expanding  eras  of  its  life.  As  it  increases  ex- 
ternally it  is  always  the  same,  coiling  closely 
about  its  original  axis.  As  it  develops  in- 
ternally it  is  again  always  the  same,  clinging 
as  closely  to  the  seat  of  its  original  vitality, 
even  keeping  open  communication,  through 
the  whole  series  of  its  dividing  partitions, 
by  a  living  siphuncular  cord,  with  the  cell  in 
which  it  began. 

Poenitentia,  in  like  manner,  has  ever  ex- 
hibited a  similar  potency  in  enlarging  the 
scope  of  its  own  application  in  just  such  a 
succession  of  chambers,  and  in  developing 
just  such  an  unchangeable  purpose  to  mean 
exactly,  and  no  more,  what  it  was  primarily  in- 
tended to  mean.  You  may  look  into  its  black 
mouth,  and  there  is  the  self-same  primitive 
cephalopod,  still  sufficient  unto  itself  because 
occupying  the  sufficient  mouthpiece  of  an 
idea  which  comes  home  to  all  ages  and  to 
all  conditions  of  mankind. 

It  comes  so  universally  home  because  its 
origin  was  so  primitively  homely.  Its  whole 
meaning  arose  in  and  was  represented  by 
no 


"  Repentance  "  Persistent  Latin. 

the  Sanskrit  monosyllable  Pu, — to  cleanse 
from  dirt.  Pcenitentia  has  always  retained 
and  has  always  sustained  this  primary  idea 
of  purgation.  Its  career  has  been  marked  by 
progressive  historic  stages,  in  every  one  of 
which  this  idea  has  in  some  way  prevailed. 

When  it  developed  itself  among  the  pri- 
meval Greeks,  it  was  noiv^,  a  word  for  blood- 
money.  A  murderer,  say,  by  a  redeeming 
paymentj/tfrg'Vfd'  himself  of  all  further  respon- 
sibility to  the  relatives  of  the  man  he  had 
slain.  Their  vengeance  was  satisfied;  they 
no  longer  pursued  him.  Hence  the  word 
came  to  signify  "vengeance." 

When  the  idea  developed  itself  among  the 
Latins  it  was  poena;  and  it  rose  with  Roman 
civilization  into  an  expression  closely  identi- 
fied with  the  criminal  law.  It  became  a  desig- 
nation for  all  grades  of  punishment  inflicted 
under  the  law,  whereby  those  who  had  of- 
fended or  injured  the  community  made  their 
peace  with  it,  satisfied  justice — in  a  word, 
purged  themselves — by  bearing  the  penalty 
which  had  been  fixed  upon  as  measuring  the 
degree  of  their  transgression.  To  use  another 
word  from  the  same  root,  they  expiated  their 
crime  against  the  state.  To  use  still  another, 
in 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pxnitentia. 

they  were  purified  in  the  eye  of  the  law  by 
what  they  had  suffered. 

The  term  pxna  thus  belonged  to  the  court 
of  law  and  to  the  language  of  the  judgment- 
seat.  Whence  our  modern  duplication  of  it 
in  the  legal  phrase  "  pain  and  penalty." 

But  the  expression  pcenitentia,  which  was 
formed  out  of  it,  and  which  represented  the 
pain  of  one  who  thus  bore  the  penalty  of  his 
misdeeds,  was  never  a  legal  term.  The  law 
in  that  day  did  not  concern  itself  with  what 
the  condemned  criminal  felt.  But  the  popu- 
lar mind  did,  and  put  itself  in  sentimental 
sympathy  with  him.  Hence  came  the  com- 
ing of  pcenitentia,  as  a  current  word  in  Latin 
literature  for  the  sorrow  or  regret  which  fol- 
lowed when  one  had  made  a  mistake  or 
committed  an  error  of  any  kind.  It  meant 
exactly  the  after-care  which  was  conveyed  by 
Mera/zeAem  (Metameleia)  in  the  Greek.  It 
was  too  variously  used  to  retain  any  strong 
reminiscence  of  its  origin.  Indeed,  its  range 
of  application  came  to  be  very  much  that  of 
"  repentance  "  in  our  common  speech.  It  re- 
lated to  affairs  or  to  morals,  as  the  case  might 
be,  and  indicated  a  feeling  which  mightbe  fleet- 

112 


"Repentance  "  Persistent  Latin. 


ing  and  shallow  or  profound  and  effectual,  ac- 
cording to  the  levity  or  gravity  of  the  occasion. 

When,  however,  pcenitentia  was  taken  up 
by  Latin  Christianity  it  deepened  into  an  ex- 
pression of  very  serious  import.  It  rapidly 
revived  all  the  ideas  and  associations  that 
lay  in  pcena  itself.  It  put  itself  first  on  high 
moral  ground  exclusively.  It  put  itself  next 
on  divine  juridical  ground  exclusively.  It 
seems  to  have  met  Meravom  near  the  close 
of  the  second  century,  when  Christian  ideas 
were  beginning  to  find  utterance  in  the  Latin 
tongue.  Up  to  that  moment  the  universal 
church,  even  in  Rome  itself,  spoke  but  one 
language — the  language  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. But  now  the  "  Old  Latin  "  version 
arose  in  North  Africa,  and  the  Latin  lawyer 
Tertullian  began  to  write. 

The  springs  which  hitherto  had  burst  from 
the  hills  were  now  made  to  send  their  living 
waters  through  a  Roman  aqueduct.  Practi- 
cal and  available  precision  of  idea  set  in. 
The  Latin  version  began  to  mould  the  theol- 
ogy of  the  age. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  Merdvoia  was  al- 
ready in  a  condition  to  meet  the  new  move- 
"3 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pxnitentia. 

ment  half-way.  It  had  degenerated  from  its 
New  Testament  use.  It  had  subsided  from 
its  apostolic  height.  We  have  neither  time 
nor  space  for  reasons  and  conjectures  why, 
as  they  suggest  themselves  in  contemplating 
a  period  of  which  we  know  very  little,  except 
that  there  was  a  general  declension  after  the 
Apostolic  Age.  But  it  would  seem  as  if  M£- 
rdvoia  had  already  lost  its  etymology,  and 
now  drew  its  signification  from  the  idea  of 
fj-erd  and  dvota,  a  return  from  madness  or 
folly.  We  know  at  least  this  much:  that 
Lactantius,  a  century  later,  so  understood 
and  interpreted  it,  giving  his  impression  of  its 
import  in  the  rendering  resipiscentia,  a  word 
which  Beza  afterwards  worked  for  what  it  was 
worth,  in  his  avoidance  of  the  Romish  poeni- 
tentia  of  the  Vulgate.  But  at  the  time  we 
are  speaking  of,  Merdvoia,  now  possibly  no 
higher  than  Metame'leia,  appears  to  have 
assimilated  itself  very  kindly  with,  pcenitentia, 
which,  accordingly,  with  Roman  promptitude 
and  energy,  at  once  undertook  to  dominate 
and  direct  the  thought  of  the  Church. 

After  this  a  sad  fate  awaited  Meravom 
itself.     Having  thus  sunk  its  apostolic  iden- 
114 


''Repentance  "  Persistent  Latin. 

tity,  its  degeneration  went  on  in  the  usage  of 
Greek  ecclesiastical  speech,  till  finally  it  sank 
so  low  as  to  stand  only  for  a  minor  penitential 
genuflection ;  so  many  "  metanoias  " — say, 
bowings  of  the  head — for  such  and  such  a 
peccadillo ! 

Strangely  and  curiously  enough,  too,  the 
original  New  Testament  idea  of  it  was  only 
finally  saved  by  the  symbol  with  which  it 
had  been  scripturally  coupled,  /Mimosa 
Meravotac.1  "  Baptism,"  a  word  adopted  let- 
ter for  letter  by  the  Latin  from  the  Greek, 
but  coupled  in  the  Latin  version  with  poeni- 

1  It  is  very  clear  to  us  that  the  "  Baptisma"  of 
John,  as  twinned  with  his  "  Metanoia,"  was  a  sym- 
bol of  revivification — an  intimation  of  it  as  it  was 
afterwards  apostolically  understood.  The  idea  of 
water  as  a  symbol  of  cleansing  was  obvious,  com- 
monplace, and  universal.  But  this  rite  was,  in  the 
whole  tremendous  manner  of  it,  an  invocation  of  the 
power  of  water  in  a  way  that  was  as  profound,  pecu- 
liar, and  original  as  Christianity  itself.  It  pointed 
expressly  to  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  which  was  not 
to  purify  but  to  re-create.  And  it  pointed  as  expres- 
sively to  the  work  of  water  as  the  renewer  and  re- 
storer of  life.  We  can  only  hint  at  this  its  sugges- 
tive coincidence  with  the  meaning  of  Metanoia.  The 
view  can  be  impressively  substantiated,  but  not  now, 
and  here. 

"5 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

tentia,  in  the  sense  of  "purification,"  had  in 
itself  strength  enough  to  keep  alive  in  theo- 
logical thought  its  primitive  and  only  true 
association  with  "  regeneration." 


116 


IV. 

THE  ROMAN  UTILIZATION  OF  "  REPENTANCE." 

BUT  to  come  back  to  our  main  point. 
Let  us  follow  very  briefly,  yet,  we  hope, 
sufficiently,  the  adventures  of  our  nautilus 
pcenitentia. 

Tertullian  tells  us  in  the  opening  of  his 
"  De  Pcenitentia  "  that  all  former  general  lit- 
erary notions  of  it  must  be  dismissed ;  that  as 
a  Christian  word  it  meant  "a  passion  of  the 
mind,  or  grief  for  the  offense  of  our  former 
acts."  This  exclusive  exaltation  of  it  arose 
from  the  consciousness  of  sin  in  the  sight  of 
God,  and  from  its  consequent  emotion,  which 
was  more  a  terror  of  His  judgments  than  a 
delight  in  His  glad  tidings.  Under  the  fear 
of  Him  and  the  flight  from  evil  the  life  was 
changed.  The  sinner,  awakening  to  the  mad- 
ness of  his  course,  took  shelter  in  the  Chris- 
tian community  as  in  a  city  of  refuge,  and 
there,  in  that  centre  of  light,  his  soul  became 
117 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

irradiated  with  the  joy  of  faith,  the  conscious- 
ness also  of  having  been  redeemed,  and  hence 
of  absolute  security  in  the  household  which 
gathered  around  the  table  of  the  Lord. 

But  in  the  practical  working  of  that  com- 
munity of  grateful  love  in  the  saving  presence 
of  Christ,  the  sinful  propensities  of  human 
nature  proved  too  irrepressible ;  the  theoreti- 
cal horror,  also,  of  evil  in  that  age  of  specu- 
lation over  it,  in  addition  to  this  practical 
experience  with  it,  proved  too  intense ;  and 
the  juridical  tradition  of  the  Old  Testament, 
besides,  was  felt  to  be  too  authoritative  (the 
New  Testament  had  scarcely  been  put  to- 
gether yet),  for  the  idea  of  pcsnitentia  to  re- 
main in  its  single  and  simple  form.  The 
Roman  genius  for  law  and  practical  organ- 
ization, therefore,  soon  laid  hold  of  it,  and 
began  to  develop  all  its  resources  from  that 
time  on. 

The  word  began  by  meeting  admirably,  be- 
cause after  a  legal  manner,  a  difficulty  which 
had  developed  itself  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity from  the  very  beginning.  We  find 
it  spoken  of  as  so  applied  in  the  latter  part 
of  Tertullian's  treatise.  He  speaks  of  those 
118 


The  Roman  Utilization  of '" Repentance" 

who  had  turned  out  derelict  to  the  faith  and 
delinquent  to  its  righteousness,  and  who  had 
therefore  brought  reproach  upon  the  com- 
munity. The  Church  had  to  vindicate  its 
own  purity  before  the  world,  and  yet,  unlike 
the  State  under  similar  circumstances,  it  had 
to  sympathize  in  mercy  with  the  sinner.  So 
potnitentia  now  came  before  it  not  only,  as  at 
first,  with  the  signification  of  tears  unto  turn- 
ing, but  of  tears  unto  returning ;  not  only  "pri- 
mary repentance"  but  "secondary  repentance" 
as  Tertullian  terms  it.  Under  the  strange 
and  pathetic  phenomenon  of  the  excommu- 
nicated— the  penitents,  as  they  came  to  be 
called — praying  for  restoration,  a  condition 
of  things  daily  increasing  in  intensity  and  be- 
coming a  fixed  feature  in  the  Church,  the  word 
soon  concentrated  most  of  its  force  upon  the 
latter  meaning.  It  developed  a  growing  legal 
aspect  as  it  elaborated  itself  in  dealing  both 
justly  and  mercifully  with  the  crowd  of  peni- 
tents which  thronged  about  the  church  doors 
and  even  groveled  at  the  feet  of  the  presbyters, 
pleading  for  readmission.  There  they  were, 
making  their  appeal  in  every  possible  way, 
trying  to  purge  themselves  by  voluntary  aus- 
terities, to  expiate  their  offense  by  self-punish- 
119 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Potnitentia. 

ments,  and  to  make  satisfaction  to  the  authori- 
ties by  such  outward  demonstrations  of  sorrow 
as  would  prove  their  sincerity.  And  all  the 
Church  could  do  was  to  cry,  as  it  now  sup- 
posed John  the  Baptist  to  have  cried,  " ' Pceni- 
tentiam  agite!  "  "  Do  penance!  "  and  to  set 
about  reducing  the  business  of  restoration  to 
a  system,  the  contrivance  of  various  tests  and 
conditions  under  which  it  could,  with  safety 
to  itself  and  a  good  conscience  towards  God, 
"  remit "  the  sin  and  readmit  the  sinner. 

Then  began  a  question  and  controversy, 
which  lasted  for  many  generations,  over  the 
extent  of  the  Church's  authority  to  legislate 
against  sin,  and  to  occupy  the  judgment-seat, 
and  to  administer  the  prerogative  of  God  in 
"  pardoning  "  or  "  absolving." 

It  was  a  blind  work  that  it  had  undertaken, 
for  it  could  not  see  into  the  heart ;  it  could 
only  judge  by  the  outside ;  and  it  could  only 
exact  coarse  external  evidences  of  reforma- 
tion. The  whole  realm  of  the  inward  mind 
and  of  the  inner  motives  was  out  of  its  prov- 
ince ;  and  therefore  just  so  much  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  as  was  "  within  "  and  that  came 
not  "  with  observation  "  was  beyond  its  juris- 
diction. 


The  Roman  Utilization  of  "  Repentance" 

Nevertheless  the  Roman  genius  rose  to  the 
occasion,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  construct 
the  scales  of  divine  justice  with  greater  and 
greater  ingenuity  of  elaboration,  and  with 
fitter  and  fitter  adaptation  to  its  own  ready 
handling. 

It  were  needless  to  follow  our  nautilus 
pcenitentia  as  it  went  on  from  epoch  to 
epoch,  camerating  itself  around  one  crisis 
after  another,  and  evolving  a  whole  system 
of  expiatory  penalties,  until  it  culminated  fi- 
nally in  the  "  Sacrament  of  Penance,"  a  grand 
purgative  transaction  under  hierarchical  ad- 
ministration, with  a  jurisdiction  extending,  on 
the  one  hand,  into  Purgatory  for  the  dead, 
and,  on  the  other,  into  the  equally  question- 
able realm  of  Casuistry  for  the  living. 

However,  it  looked  at  last  as  if  the  Latin 
creature  had  expended  all  its  vitality  and 
was  about  to  turn  into  death  and  corruption, 
when  it  reached  the  climax  of  its  assumption 
in  the  sale  of  indulgences,  and  the  conse- 
quent reaction  of  the  Reformation  burst 
upon  Christendom.  One  would  suppose  that 
the  word  would  have  perished  in  Protestant- 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

ism  after  it  had  led  the  Church  up  to  such  a 
scandalous  catastrophe  as  the  loss  of  its  hier- 
archical hold  on  the  conscience  and  the  future 
destiny  of  mankind.  But  no.  The  Refor- 
mation turned  out  to  be  only  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  another  chamber.  The  inexhaustible 
energy  and  persistency  of  a  word  which  had 
so  powerful  an  etymology,  and  a  usage  in 
idea  which  had  all  along  been  nourished 
by  the  Vulgate,  now  came  forth  in  a  new 
manifestation.  Instead  of  drawing  back  into 
its  shell  and  dying  there,  pcenitentia  magni- 
fied itself  the  more.  It  began  to  secrete  for 
itself  a  more  roomy  and  refined  compartment. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  Vulgate  it  rose 
anew  in  almost  every  European  version  of 
the  New  Testament ;  and  in  no  version, 
though  direct  from  the  Greek,  did  Merdvoia 
in  its  high  apostolic  meaning  find  room 
enough  to  breathe.  The  Latin  substitute  re- 
mained in  all  its  primeval  force,  still  keeping 
up  its  suction  from  its  Aryan  origin  in  the 
idea  of  purgation,  only  dropping  its  coarse 
medieval  accretions ;  and  so  around  it  gath- 
ered again  the  fabric  of  the  modern  popular 
theology,  still  Latin  to  the  core. 


122 


V. 

THE  GOSPEL  IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  LAW. 

IN  the  facile  English  tongue  the  Latin 
cephalopod  pcenitentia  put  forth  three  ten- 
tacles under  which  English  Christianity  en- 
tered upon  its  practical  conception  of  the 
Gospel.  All  three  may  now  be  found  in  the 
English  Prayer-book — happily  only  two  of 
them  in  the  American:  "penance"  in  the 
sense  of  discipline ;  "penitence"  in  the  sense 
of  contrition ;  and  "  repentance  "  or  "  re-peni- 
tence" in  the  sense  of  such  an  effectual  work- 
ing of  either  or  of  both  as  resulted  in  amend- 
ment of  life. 

As  "  repentance"  therefore,  it  took  the  fore- 
most place,  and  as  "  repentance"  though  often 
badly  confounded  with  the  other  two,  it  was 
now  expounded  as  identical  in  meaning  with 
Mera'vom,  dragging  back  the  Greek  idea  into 
its  own  limitations,  and  so  attenuating  the 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

substance  of  the  Greek  word  as  finally  to  put 
its  ideal  quality  out  of  sight  altogether.  Me- 
rdvota  was  again  Latinized  out  of  its  very 
soul,  and  its  essence  shrank  away  into  a  cir- 
cumstance. 

A  scholar  and  theologian  like  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor (who  wrote  his  great  treatise  on  "Repen- 
tance "  about  forty  years  after  1 6 1 1 ,  in  order 
to  correct  the  false  impressions  which  were  in- 
evitable to  the  word),  might  do  his  best  to  fix 
and  distinguish  the  lost  meaning,  and  to  as- 
semble under  the  term  "  repentance  "  the  ideas 
of  "faith"  and  "renewal"  and  "reconcilia- 
tion," but  the  word  was  not  to  be  so  easily 
rarified  out  of  its  concrete  force.  With  all 
his  ingenuity  it  baffled  and  contradicted  him. 
He  could  not  make  it  "  serve  his  turn,"  as  he 
said  it  would. 

And  so  it  will  always  stand  for  what  it  origi- 
nally was,  and  so  it  will  always  reverse  the 
theory  and  the  action  of  the  Gospel.  Its  mis- 
leading tendency  can  never  be  expounded  out 
of  it.  It  will  always  give  the  Gospel  a  legal 
aspect ;  it  will  always,  therefore,  dim  the  near 
Fatherhood  of  God  in  setting  Him  upon  a 
distant  judgment-seat ;  it  will  always  put 
124 


The  Gospel  in  ttie  Shadow  of  the  Law. 

Christ  in  a  wrong  relation  to  both  God  and 
man ;  it  will  always  proclaim  that  man  must 
be  purged  from  sin  by  his  own  self-condem- 
nation and  by  his  formal  discharge  from  a 
Divine  Tribunal,  and  not  set  free  (dfeotg), 
first  and  essentially,  through  that  renewal  of 
his  nature  (Merdvoia)  under  the  knowledge 
of  God  in  Christ  and  the  inspiration  of  the 
Spirit,  by  which  only  the  strength  of  sin  is 
undermined  and  the  creative  work  of  God 
in  the  soul  resumed. 

It  is  useless,  also,  to  deny  or  ignore  the 
fact  of  this  perversion  and  reversal  of  the 
ideally  sublime  and  gracious  message  of  the 
good  tidings  of  great  joy,  in  the  presence  of 
the  forbidding  systems  of  theology,  partly  in- 
herited from  Latin  sources,  partly  constructed 
by  modern  ingenuity,  which  have  been  nur- 
tured and  sustained,  as  well  as,  to  a  degree, 
originally  inspired,  by  this  Latin  conception  of 
poenitentia.  With  the  undying  legalism  which 
is  imbedded  in  it ;  with  its  undying  reminis- 
cence of  vengeance,  of  punishment,  of  expi- 
ation; with  its  undying  suggestion  that  the 
Change  of  Mind  is  only  a  change  of  will 
wrought  by  fear;  with  its  undying  determi- 
nation towards  a  theory  of  radical  corruption 
125 


TJie  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Poenitentia. 

in  which  tears  are  an  all-powerful  cleansing 
agent ;  with  its  too  ready  readaptation,  there- 
fore, of  the  method  in  which  human  nature 
was  dealt  with  in  the  Old  Testament — as 
itself  a  creature  of  the  law,  whether  Mosaic 
or  Roman — it  has  erected  a  judgment-seat 
in  the  heavens  and  earth,  and  put  upon 
the  face  of  God  the  frown  of  outraged  jus- 
tice, and  lowered  the  great  and  graphic  met- 
aphor which  pervades  the  New  Testament 
— simply  for  convenience  and  vividness  of 
expression  in  an  age  and  to  a  people  pene- 
trated with  legal  ideas — into  an  actual  divine 
reality ;  pressing  the  pervading  parable  liter- 
ally, as  corresponding  point  for  point  to  the 
forensic  and  judicial  arrangements  which 
have  come  up  in  communities  of  men  when 
dealing  with  evil. 

Even  thus,  as  we  conceive,  has  this  court- 
room conception  of  Christianity  been  made 
its  working  theory,  ever  since  the  penitential 
idea  was  given  this  initial  and  commanding 
position  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the 
Church. 

"Repentance"  when  all  its  etymological 
potency  is  challenged  and  drawn  out  by  its 
126 


The  Gospel  in  the  Shadow  of  the  Law, 

use  as  a  theological  word,  or  rather  as  a  dog- 
matic key-word — as  it  is  when  it  is  put  in 
the  place  of  Merdvota — dominates  the  whole 
conception  of  the  Gospel.  It  not  only,  as 
we  say,  reverses  the  order  of  its  thought, 
and  gives  a  wrong  deflection  to  its  ideas, 
but  it  infects  everything  within  its  reach. 

It  throws  a  shadow  here  and  a  color  there 
even  over  the  translation  of  the  Greek  Tes- 
tament, and  sustains  the  Latin  tinge  which 
pervades  the  texture  of  its  English  every- 
where. It  has  thus  obscured  the  absolute 
originality  of  the  New  Testament  as  com- 
pared with  the  Old.  And  it  has  thus  facili- 
tated the  perpetuation  of  Judaism  in  the 
Church — that  is,  the  dominance  of  external- 
ism  in  taste  and  sentiment ;  of  mechanism  in 
methods  of  faith  and  devotion ;  of  artificial- 
ism  in  thought  and  feeling ;  of  literalism  and 
conventionalism — all  that  is  fatal  to  mental 
breadth  and  spiritual  depth,  all  that  shuts  the 
universal  humanity  of  Christ  out  of  the  uni- 
versal heart. 

And  yet  "  repentance  "  is  a  word  of  indis- 
pensable value  to  us  if  it  can  be  kept  where 
it  originally  belonged  in  Latin  literature,  and 
127 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Panitentia. 

where  it  really  belongs  now  in  common  Eng- 
lish speech ;  if  it  can  be  kept  in  the  meaning 
it  had  in  popular  usage  before  its  etymology 
was  roused  into  activity  by  its  adoption  as  a 
dogmatic  principle,  and  before  the  call  "Re- 
pent ye!  "  was  understood  to  be  the  creative 
fiat  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth. 
We  have  to  be  grateful  to  the  practical  Latin 
genius  for  an  expression  which  seizes  upon 
all  that  poignancy  of  feeling  with  which  the 
enlightened  conscience  turns  against  sin,  and 
which  describes  with  a  dignity  and  depth  given 
to  no  other  word  that  sense  of  unworthiness 
and  guiltiness  which  grows  more  and  more 
acute  as  the  standard  of  righteousness  rises 
before  every  heart.  In  that,  its  true  sphere, 
it  is  indeed  a  divine  sequel  to  Meravom,  the 
shadow  which  witnesses  to  the  power  of  that 
refulgent  word.  When  we  "turn  from  the 
darkness  to  the  light " — which  is  the  mean- 
ing of  Meravom — it  is  a  remnant  of  the  dark- 
ness, our  individual,  personal  share  of  it, 
dogging  our  footsteps  and  keeping  us  humble 
amid  all  the  glory  that  shines  about  us  in  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ.  May  it  always 
express  the  "  Metame'leia  "  which  it  properly 
translates,  and  which  Bishop  Westcott  defines 
128 


The  Gospel  in  the  Shadow  of  the  Law. 

so  well  to  be  "  a  special  relation  to  the  past ; 
a  feeling  of  regret  for  a  particular  action, 
which  may  be  deepened  into  remorse,"  and 
— we  may  take  the  liberty  of  reminding  him, 
with  Scripture  authority  for  it  (see  Matt.  xxi. 
29,  where  the  son  who  refused  to  go  to  work 
"afterward  repented  himself,  and  went") — 
deepened  also  into  such  a  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing as  brings  with  it  amendment  of  conduct. 

Most  true  is  it,  then,  that,  as  Bishop  West- 
cott  says,  "  the  force  of  words  is  not  limited 
by  their  etymology;"  but  the  remark  cannot 
be  applied,  as  he  intends  it  to  be  applied,  to 
" repentance"  as  an  expression  so  plastic  as 
to  be  easily  moulded  into  the  great  meaning 
of  MeTdvoia.  The  energy  of  its  etymology 
is  too  monopolizing,  too  pervadingly  positive, 
as  all  its  history  shows,  when  given  a  tempt- 
ing occasion.  It  has  been  even  powerful, 
aggressive,  and  intrusive  enough  to  put  the 
light  of  Merdvoia  under  a  bushel  for  ages, 
and  no  hopeful  theory  over  the  manipulation 
of  words  to  suit  our  purpose  ought  to  per- 
suade us  to  trust  it  again. 


129 


VI. 

"DISASTROUS  TWILIGHT"  IN  THE  REVISED 
VERSION. 

WE  are  so  careful  in  making  a  strong  point 
of  this  because  the  revisers  themselves  were 
evidently  influenced  by  a  contrary  impression 
when  they  decided  not  only  to  let  the  trans- 
lation of  Meravom  alone,  but  decided  also  to 
pass  so  quietly  over  it  as  not  even  to  awaken 
a  suspicion  or  a  question  as  to  its  absolute 
equivalence.  Indeed,  Bishop  Westcott  would 
seem  to  be  giving  their  view  of  the  matter, 
and  speaking  on  their  behalf,  when  he  says, 
"  It  was  impossible  to  displace  '  repent]  '  re- 
pentance] which,  though  originally  inade- 
quate, are  capable  of  receiving  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  original" 

This,  it  will  be  noticed,  is  his  idea  of  the 
"  transfiguration  "  of  "  repentance  "  put  in  a 
different  way.  It  is  an  expression  of  confi- 
dence in  the  readiness  of  that  Latin  word  to 
130 


"Disastrous  Twilight"  in  the  Revised  Version. 

take  the  stamp  of  the  Greek  word  so  thor- 
oughly that  its  own  original  image  would  be 
obliterated,  its  own  identity  be  lost.  In  de- 
fault of  the  power  to  get  rid  of  it,  it  could 
be  made  to  do.  All  that  he  had  just  defined 
Meravom  to  be — "  an  intellectual  and  moral 
regeneration  " — all  the  "  apostolic  force  " 
that  we  have  claimed  for  Merdvoia,  which 
he  admits  to  be  a  true  exposition,  is  to  be 
put  into  it.  Its  etymology  is  to  be  ignored. 
Its  history  is  to  be  ignored.  Even  its  every- 
day usage  is  to  be  ignored.  It  is  to  be  arbi- 
trarily understood  to  convey  the  "  full  mean- 
ing of  the  original "  for  which  it  has  so  long 
stood,  and  nevermore  any  meaning  which  it 
has  all  along  had.  It  is  only  a  Latin  word 
with  a  Greek  face.  It  spells  "repentance" 
but  it  is  to  be  pronounced  "  Metanoia." 

What  a  curious  spectacle  would  be  pre- 
sented if  this  could  be  done,  and  what  a  con- 
fession it  would  be  of  the  impotence  of  our 
own  tongue  under  the  paralysis  of  a  tradi- 
tion! A  word  which  was  once  thought  to 
be  a  translation,  but  which  has  since  turned 
out  to  be  a  perversion,  going  back  into  the 
original  by  a  process  of  absorption,  and  hence- 
forth depending  upon  the  original  for  its  defi- 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

nition!  This  would  be  putting  the  moon 
into  the  eye  of  the  sun  and  expecting  the 
sun  to  shine.  Neither  luminary  would  then 
give  its  appointed  light.  It  would  be  an 
eclipse  of  the  greater  by  the  lesser :  Merdvoia 
turned  into  nought  but  a  lurid  ring,  because 
of  the  ball  of  blackness  at  the  centre  of  it. 

It  was  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  just  such 
a  "  disastrous  twilight "  that,  as  Bishop  West- 
cott  says,  "  it  was  of  paramount  importance  " 
to  keep  the  word  "repentance"  clear  and 
absolute  in  the  version,  unmixed  with  any 
association  with  its  own  former  idea.  In 
the  version  it  should  represent  Merdvoia, 
and  Meravom  alone.  Then  the  reader  of 
the  Revised  Version,  having  discovered  that 
"  repentance  "  was  a  translation  upwards  into 
the  meaning  of  Meravota,  would  not  be  dis- 
tracted from  that  conception  of  it,  either  by 
anything  which  "repent"  might  mean  in 
popular  speech,  or  by  what  it  might  mean 
elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament  itself. 

But  out  of  this  "paramount"  necessity 
there  arose  a  difficulty,  as  it  turned  out, 
which  the  revisers  did  not  and  could  not  suc- 
cessfully overcome.  "Repent "  had  a  double 
132 


"Disastrous  Twilight'1''  in  the  Revised  Version. 

in  the  New  Testament  that  would  not  do\vn. 
There  before  them  was  Merafie^eoOai  ("  Meta- 
m61esthai "),  formidable  and  unremovable  be- 
cause of  its  rightful  claim  to  both  the  physi- 
ognomy and  the  soul  of  the  word  " repent" 
as  men  generally  use  it  on  serious  occasions. 
And  Bishop  Westcott  is  obliged  to  admit 
that  in  only  one  instance  was  it  made  to 
give  way  and  go  out  of  sight.  Everywhere 
else  it  stood  its  ground,  or  rather  its  ground 
had  to  be  yielded,  because  no  other  of  its 
English  kindred  had  weight  and  dignity 
enough  to  fill  its  place. 

So  the  two  luminaries  of  the  Greek  orig- 
inal— the  one  idea  which  rules  the  night  of 
regret  over  things  of  the  past,  and  figures  so 
powerfully  in  the  darkness  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  the  reflection  of  a  sun  as  yet  unrisen ; 
and  the  other  idea  which  rules  the  day  of 
faith  and  righteousness,  the  sun  that  has  since 
risen  in  the  New — are  represented  in  the  Re- 
vised Version  under  conditions  of  most  singu- 
lar aberration  and  confusion.  The  lesser  orb 
not  only  shines  alone  in  its  proper  sphere  six 
times  out  of  seven,  but  also  invades  the  day, 
even  to  hiding  the  very  disk  of  the  daylight, 
even  to  robbing  it  of  its  distinction  as  well 
133 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pueniientia. 

as  its  function,  even  to  making,  through  the 
mixture  of  the  two,  a  ghastly  monotone  of  all 
its  twoscore  and  thirteen  variants  of  light. 

Such,  then,  is  the  result  of  the  endeavor 
to  cope  with  these  two  words  in  the  original. 
"Repentance  "  has  been  given  a  heightened  or 
intensified  signification  wherever  it  stands 
for  Uerdvota,  and  in  its  possession  of  this 
is  to  be  its  sole  distinction.  But  when  and 
where  the  distinction  is  to  be  made  is  left 
to  the  unlearned  reader  to  find  out  for  him- 
self. In  one  part  of  the  New  Testament 
"repent"  means  one  thing,  and  in  another 
part  another  thing;  and  so,  between  these 
two  stools  of  "repentance"  he  is  still  in  as 
much  danger  as  before  the  revision,  of  fall- 
ing into  that  low  conception  of  the  apos- 
tolic idea  which  generally  prevails. 

Let  us,  now,  however,  draw  from  this  mix- 
ture of  the  two  words  in  the  English  Version 
a  fair  inference  as  to  what  "  the  repentance  of 
the  Gospel "  is  supposed  to  mean. 

First,  it  is  a  retrospective  act  of  the  mind. 

Second,  it  is  a  feeling  specifically  directed 
against  sin. 


"Disastrous  Twilight"  in  the  Revised  Version. 

Third,  it  is  this  in  such  intense  action  that 
it  brings  about  a  change  in  the  conduct  and 
life. 

Fourth,  it  is  this,  also,  in  such  effective 
action  that  it  takes  hold  of  the  mind;  so 
working  upon  the  will  as  to  change  the  men- 
tal habit  and  attitude,  thus  amounting  to  a 
conversion  of  the  whole  nature. 

Fifth,  and  this  mental  and  spiritual  atti- 
tude towards  sin  is  the  full  import  of  the  word 
Msrdvoia. 

Now  the  obvious  thought  that  occurs  to  one 
is  this :  the  whole  of  the  above  conception  of 
"repentance1''  could  have  been  easily  put, by 
the  New  Testament  writers,  into  the  com- 
pass of  Meraf/eAeta  ("  Metameleia") — which 
means  "  after-care."  Why  did  they  not  do  it? 
The  expression  would  have  lent  itself  most 
kindly  to  such  a  purpose.  It  could  have  been 
made  to  rise  to  any  measure  of  that  idea  under 
their  heightening  hands.  Besides  that,  Mera- 
jtieAem  and  Merdvota  were  often  very  near  in 
signification,  as  employed  in  popular  speech 
among  the  Greeks.  They  ran  in  close  par- 
allel on  certain  occasions — so  much  so  that 
one  would  do  as  well  as  the  other ;  though 
on  other  occasions  they  could  diverge  very 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Panitentia. 


widely  apart.  Why  was  MeTa^eAem  so  care- 
fully avoided,  and  Merdvoia  so  conspicuously 
chosen?  Because  the  idea  of  an  after-care 
concentrated  upon  sin  was  not  comprehen- 
sive enough.  It  did  not  take  in  the  regener- 
ative motive  and  principle.  It  did  not  sug- 
gest the  illuminated  condition  and  action  of 
the  whole  Mind  —  Mind  in  the  sense  of  Noi>? 
—  under  which  sin  would  lose  its  hold,  would 
become  less  and  less  a  dominating  and  de- 
flecting thing,  and  faith  become  more  and 
more  a  foremost  and  active  instinct  ;  under 
which  the  nerve  would  be  more  firm,  the  eye 
more  fixed,  in  the  aim  at  the  mark,  in  the 
run  for  the  goal.  Hence,  then  came  the 
selection  and  uniform  employment  of  Mera- 
voia,  for  the  Mind  turning  from  darkness  be- 
cause of  the  coming  of  light.1 

1  There  are  two  instances  in  the  New  Testament 
where  the  idea  of  Metame'leia,  repentance,  appears  in 
express  and  designed  contrast  with  the  idea  of  Meta- 
noia,  renewal  of  mind. 

The  first  is  in  Matthew  xxi.  32,  where  the  chief 
priests  and  the  elders  are  charged  not  only  with  their 
failure  to  obey  at  first  the  proclamation  of  Renewal 
of  Mind  unto  Faith  in  the  coming  Kingdom  and  the 
Christ,  by  the  Baptist,  who  came  to  them  "in  the 
way  of  righteousness,"  but  with  "  not  even  repenting 
136 


"Disastrous  Twilight"  in  the  Revised  Version. 

The  real  potency  of  the  new  life  lay  in 
prospection,  not  retrospection.  It  lay  in 
faith,  not  in  fear.  It  lay  in  knowledge,  not 
in  sorrow.  It  was  an  awakening  to  right- 
eousness, and  therefore  a  sinning  not.  And 
hence,  then,  this  is  the  primary  word  the  evan- 
gelists and  apostles  used,  whether  as  initially 
proclamative  or  as  potentially  descriptive  of 
the  Christian  life  ;  a  word  profound  enough 
to  comprehend,  and  far-reaching  enough  to 


themselves   afterward  "    (oide 

when  they  saw  the  publicans  and  harlots  "  believing  " 

him  and  entering  into  the  Kingdom  of  God  before  them. 

The  other  is  in  2  Corinthians  vii.  10,  where  the 
Corinthians,  having  been  restored  to  their  spiritual 
senses  after  a  recent  demoralization,  under  the  awak- 
ening light  thrown  upon  their  gross  stupefaction  by 
St.  Paul,  were  told  by  him  that  now  they  had  come 
to  a  Metanoia  —  a  very  enthusiasm  of  righteousness 
—  "  a  Metanoia  not  to  be  repented  of  "  (d/iera/ie^rov). 

Here  is  the  only  place,  by  the  way,  where  the  re- 
visers felt  compelled  to  change  "  repent"  into  "  re- 
gret." The  phrase  now  runs,  "  a  repentance  which 
bringeth  no  regret"  instead  of  "  a  repentance  not  to 
be  repented  of."  St.  Paul  is  also  made  to  "  regret," 
not  "  repent,"  his  severe  letter. 

How  badly  mixed  were  the  ideas  of  the  old  trans- 
lators over  these,  in  this  striking  instance,  widely 
diverging  words  !     And  this  is  all  the  revisers  have 
done  in  clarifying  their  confusion. 
137 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitcntia. 

prophesy,  the  mightiest  motive  which  could 
energize  such  a  nature  as  that  of  man,  namely, 
the  personal  power  of  the  Son  of  God ;  and 
the  mightiest  influence  which  could  enter  his 
inmost  being  to  the  upbuilding  of  his  char- 
acter and  life,  namely,  the  inspiration  of  the 
Spirit  of  God. 

But  what  the  apostolic  mind  refused  to 
do,  even  with  the  legalism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment before  it,  the  translating  mind,  under 
the  influence  of  that  very  precedent  and  of 
a  prevailing  fashion  of  following  it,  has  in- 
sisted upon  doing.  It  has  insisted  upon  im- 
posing the  translation  of  the  idea  of  Mera- 
jueAeta  upon  the  idea  of  Merdvoia ;  and  it  has 
undertaken  to  do  what  the  original  writers 
did  not  undertake  to  do — to  expand  the  idea 
of  "  repentance  "  (Merajite/lem)  into  the  mean- 
ing of  Merdvota.  What  is  more  remarkable 
still,  it  has  undertaken  to  adapt  "  repentance  " 
to  that  high  expression  of  Faith  unto  the 
Renewal  of  the  spirit  of  the  Mind,  even  after 
it  has  been  so  thoroughly  sophisticated  and 
artificialized  under  its  Romish  use,  and,  we 
might  add,  after  it  has  been  since  so  habitu- 
ally limited  by  its  Protestant  interpretation. 
138 


VII. 

THE   POWER   OF   LATIN   PRESCRIPTION. 

Now  how  can  we  account  for  all  this  on 
the  part  of  a  body  of  men  so  learned,  so  judi- 
cious, so  conscientious,  and  so  courageous  as 
the  revisers  undoubtedly  were  ?  How  can  we 
account  for  their  impression  that  "  it  was  im- 
possible to  displace  'repent,'  'repentance1"'? 
How  can  we  account  for  their  allowing 
themselves  to  be  in  a  position  under  which 
the  proper  disposal  of  Meravom  and  Mera- 
/^Aem,  and  of  the  idea  of  "  repentance "  as 
supposed  to  be  shared  by  both,  should  have 
"offered  great  difficulties  in  translation"? 
How  can  we  account,  also,  for  the  general 
sentiment  of  the  Christian  world  which  made 
it  so  quiet  under  such  a  mistranslation  that 
the  question  was  never  raised  before  the 
revision  nor  during  it — at  least  not  raised 
enough  to  make  it  advisable  to  take  the 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Paenitentia. 

slightest  apparent  notice  of  this  gross  and 
dangerous  rendering  when  they  passed  their 
microscope  over  it  ? 

The  only  answer  is  a  very  human  and 
therefore  a  very  humiliating  one.  It  was 
all  owing  to  the  paralyzing  power  of  a  long- 
established  precedent — to  the  impalpable 
pressure  of  authority  and  example.  It  was 
all  owing  to  the  insidious  influence  of  a  Latin 
tradition,  not  only  as  felt  in  the  general 
Latin  texture  of  English  speech,  but  as  it 
had  in  this  case  become  embalmed  in  a 
body  of  Latinized  doctrine,  most  ancient  and 
venerable ;  in  a  theological  spicery  strong 
enough,  when  diffused  in  the  Jerusalem 
chamber,  to  deaden  even  the  sensibility  of 
the  alert  intelligence  which  is  now  awakening 
to  the  dawn  of  a  Greek  age  and  a  Johan- 
nine  Christianity.  Yes,  strange  as  it  may 
be  to  think  such  a  thing,  it  was  all  owing 
to  the  long-armed  Vulgate  prescription, 
which  had  held  every  previous  version  of  the 
New  Testament  in  its  grip,  even  from  the 
days  of  the  independent  Tyndale,  and  the 
power  of  which  was  felt  even  by  those  who 
retouched  his  work  at  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  even  as  it  was  felt  by  those 
140 


T/'ie  Power  of  Latin  Prescription. 

who  had  retouched  it  in  the  opening  of  the 
seventeenth. 

What  is  more  remarkable  to  observe  is — 
by  way  of  showing  ho\v  persistent  and  special 
the  descent  of  this  tradition  has  been — that 
it  appears  nowhere  else  in  the  version  than  in 
this  one  consecrated  line.  Whenever  Noiig 
by  itself,  or  in  any  of  its  other  combinations, 
comes  up  in  the  translation,  the  revisers  seem 
to  breathe  free,  and  render  it  with  a  full 
recognition  of  its  noetic  or  intellectual  ele- 
ment. It  is  almost  an  entertaining  task  to 
go  over  all  these  passages,  and  to  see  how 
fresh  this  atmosphere  is  all  about  them.  We 
had  written  out  the  whole  of  them  for  inser- 
tion here,  but  this  Supplementary  Essay  is 
already  too  long,  and  we  can  only  give  the 
references.  Compare,  in  all  cases,  the  Re- 
vised Version  and  the  suggestive  context. 

Noi)c,  mind,  understanding.  The  revisers, 
unlike  the  Authorized  Version,  have  ren- 
dered it  exclusively  so,  with  the  unfortunate 
exception  of  not  drawing  the  line  between  it 
and  0pov7/jua,  the  dispositional  idea  of  mental 
action.  (Luke  xxiv.  45  ;  Rom.  i.  28,  vii.  23, 
141 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia. 

25,  xi.  34,  xii.  2,  xiv.  5  ;  i  Cor.  i.  10,  ii.  16, 
xiv.  14,  15,  19;  Eph.  iv.  17,  23;  Phil.  iv.  7; 
Col.  ii.  18;  2  Thess.  ii.  2  ;  i  Tim.  vi.  5  ;  2 
Tim.  iii.  8 ;  Tit.  i.  15  ;  Rev.  xiii.  18,  xvii.  g.) 

Neoo),  to  see,  to  perceive,  to  understand. 
(Matt.  xv.  17,  xvi.  9,  n,  xxiv.  15  ;  Mark  vii. 
18,  viii.  17,  xiii.  14;  John  xii.  40;  Rom.  i. 
20;  Eph.  iii.  4,  20;  i  Tim.  i.  17 ;  2  Tim.  ii. 
7  ;  Heb.  xi.  3.) 

No7//Lta,  a  perception,  a  thought,  a  purpose. 
(2  Cor.  ii.  u,  iii.  14,  iv.  4,  x.  5,  xi.  3;  Phil, 
iv.  7.) 

Amvota,  a  thinking  through,  the  mind,  the 
understanding.  (Matt.  xxii.  37  ;  Mark  xii.  30  ; 
Luke  i.  51,  x.  27  ;  Eph.  ii.  3,  iv.  18;  Col.  i. 
21  ;  Heb.  viii.  10,  x.  16 ;  i  Pet.  i.  13 ;  2  Pet. 
iii.  i  ;  i  John  v.  20.) 

Aiavorftia,  thought,  purpose.    (Luke  xi.  1 7.) 

"Avom,  want  of  understanding.     (Luke  vi. 

1 1  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  9.) 

"Evvoji,  thought,  intent,  purpose.     (Heb.  iv. 

12  ;  i  Pet.  iv.  i.) 

'AvorjTog,  unthinking,  not  understanding. 
(Luke  xxiv.  25;  Rom.  i.  14;  Gal.  iii.  i,  3; 
i  Tim.  vi.  9 ;  Tit.  iii.  3.) 

"Ayvota,  ignorance.    (Acts  iii.  17,  xvii.  30  ; 
Eph.  iv,  18;  i  Pet.  i.  14.) 
142 


The  Power  of  Latin  Prescription. 

'A.yv6r]fia,  ignorance  (involuntary).  (Heb. 
ix.  7,  margin.) 

'E-ivoia,  a  thinking  upon,  thought,  (Acts 
viii.  22.) 

'Tnovoia,  a  surmise,     (i  Tim.  vi.  4.) 

Upovoeu,  to  foresee,  to  perceive  before. 
(Rom.  xii.  17  ;  2  Cor.  viii.  21  ;  i  Tim.  v.  8.) 

Ilpovoia,  foresight,  forethought.  (Acts 
xxiv.  3 ;  Rom.  xiii.  14.) 

'Ayvoew,  not  to  perceive,  not  to  know. 
(Mark  ix.  32;  Luke  ix.  45;  Acts  xiii.  27, 
xvii.  23;  Rom.  i.  13,  ii.  4,  vi.  3,  vii.  i,  x.  3, 
xi.  25  ;  i  Cor.  xi.,  xiv.  38  ;  2  Cor.  i.  8,  ii.  1 1, 
vi.  9  ;  Gal.  i.  22  ;  i  Tim.  i.  13  ;  Heb.  v.  2  ; 
2  Pet.  ii.  12.) 

"Tnovoed),  to  conjecture,  to  surmise.  (Acts 
xiii.  25,  xxv.  1 8,  xxvii.  27.) 

Karavoeco,  to  see  or  perceive  clearly,  observe, 
consider.  (Matt.  vii.  3;  Luke  vi.  41,  xii.  24, 
27,  xx.  23 ;  Acts  vii.  31,  32,  xi.  6,  xxvii.  39  ; 
Rom.iv.ig;  Heb.iii.  i,x.24  ;  James  1.23,24.) 

Here  are  surely  instances  enough — if  not 
all — limited  to  close  variants  of  Noew  and 
NoOc,  where  their  noetic  or  perceptive  ele- 
ment, the  very  core  of  their  meaning,  is  both 
recognized  and  rendered  by  the  revisers, 
often  with  great  spiritual  significance. 
H3 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pxnitentia. 

But  Meravoeo)  and  M.erdvoia,  words  from 
the  same  mental  stem,  variants  of  the  same 
intellectual  idea,  appear  fifty-three  times  in 
the  Greek  Testament,  only  to  disappear  in 
the  version!  Not  a  sign,  not  a  suggestion, 
of  their  real  quality  is  conveyed  to  the  Eng- 
lish reader!  They  have  been  kept  and  set 
apart  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  Latin 
tradition  of  " repent"  " repentance" 

The  Greek  pith  has  been  pushed  out  of 
Merdvoia  that  it  may  pipe  the  Miserere  \ 


144 


VIII. 

THE   TRUE    INTERPRETATION. 

IT  would  have  gone  far  to  soften  this  situa- 
tion if  the  revisers  had  asked  their  eminent 
colleague,  who  had  already  done  so  much  in 
furnishing  them  with  the  purest  Greek  text, 
to  furnish  them  also  with  a  marginal  note 
which  should  throw  a  distinguishing  side- 
light into  their  metanoian  "repent"  and 
"repentance."  If  they  had,  it  would  prob- 
ably have  been  this :  "A  general  Change  of 
Mind,  which  becomes  in  its  fullest  development 
an  intellectual  and  moral  Regeneration."  And 
if  they  had,  these  old  Latin  words,  so  pal- 
pably inadequate  and  incongruous,  would 
have  been  on  the  way  to  be  "displaced," 
both  unceremoniously  and  soon. 

But  as  the  margin  has  been  left  without  this 
illustration,  the  only  alternative  now  would 
seem  to  be  the  very  unsatisfactory  one  which 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pcenitentia, 

is  intimated  in  Bishop  Westcott's  personal 
note  to  us : 

"  The  preacher  and  the  scholar  must  trans- 
figure '  repentance]  even  as  fides  and  gratia 
have  been  transfigured.  In  this  work  your 
essay  will,  I  trust,  be  of  eminent  service." 

Which  can  only  mean  that,  the  revisers 
having  failed  to  do  it,  or  to  do  anything 
about  it,  the  task  of  making  the  best  of  an 
inadequate  and  misleading  translation  is 
now  thrown  upon  the  pulpit  and  the  com- 
mentators. 

This  is  not  a  pleasant  fact  to  face:  that 
the  original  Scriptures  should,  in  any  essen- 
tial part  or  in  any  vital  word,  be  so  incom- 
municable to  the  people,  that  the  people  must 
be  dependent  upon  their  teachers  not  only  for 
exposition,  but  for  revelation  itself.  Such, 
we  take  it,  is  not  the  true  idea  of  a  version, 
and  one  may  well  be  impatient  if  the  cause 
for  it  should  not  reside  in  the  original,  but 
in  some  conventionalism  of  habit  or  taste  or 
theory  or  principle  on  the  part  of  the  trans- 
lators, which  has  abridged  the  capacity  of 
our  own  language.  And  one  may  be  sure 
that  if  darkness  does  still  rest  on  any  por- 
146 


The  True  Interpretation. 


tion  of  our  version  the  fault  lies  in  a  hesita- 
tion to  employ  the  full  freedom  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue.  But  we  do  not  say,  in  saying 
this,  that  any  darkness,  or  shadow  of  dark- 
ness, still  lingers  over  the  work  of  the  revis- 
ers because  of  their  unwillingness  to  remove 
it  through  any  such  cause,  or  that  they  were 
conscious  of  any  such  cause,  even  in  regard 
to  this  rendering  of  Me-dvota. 

Most  especially  do  we  personally  feel  this 
when  we  have  the  great  scholar  and  preacher 
in  mind  who  sat  so  high  in  the  counsels  of 
the  revisers,  and  upon  whose  endorsement  of 
our  exposition  of  the  Greek  word  we  set  so 
high  a  value.  We  have  ventured  to  differ 
with  him  only  on  a  question  of  judgment, 
wherein  he  may  be  wise  and  we  unwise. 
He  would  not  disturb  a  rendering  around 
which  for  ages  many  venerable  associations 
have  gathered,  and  the  removal  of  which 
would  disarrange  many  doctrinal  concep- 
tions. As  he  looks  upon  it,  to  "displace" 
it  would  be  to  displace  a  corner-stone ;  and 
though  he  is  ready  to  admit  that  it  was  "  orig- 
inally inadequate,"  yet  he  evidently  thinks 
less  harm  would  result  if  it  were  quietly  and 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  Pxnitentia. 

gradually  changed  for  another,  which,  though 
retaining  the  name,  would  be  the  genuine 
stone.  Such  a  substitution,  he  thinks,  would 
become  practicable  in  the  progress  of  public 
sentiment,  or,  as  he  calls  it,  "  Christian  use." 
Doubtless  there  are  many  who  would  agree 
with  him  in  this  method  of  meeting  the  enor- 
mous difficulty  of  repairing  a  very  serious 
error  which  has  so  many  ages  for  its  sanction 
and  a  remote  antiquity  for  its  origin. 

Our  own  belief  in  the  utter  impractica- 
bility of  this  way  of  dealing  with  it  we  have 
now  tried  to  express  in  the  best  way  we  could. 
We  would  make  the  change  at  once  in  the 
text  of  the  translation.  We  would  remove 
the  idea  and  the  words  "repent"  "repentance  " 
from  every  part  of  the  New  Testament  except 
where  they  represent  the  idea  of  Msra^eAem ; 
and  we  would  have  it  so,  that  no  sermon  or 
treatise  should  employ  the  expressions  except 
in  the  sense  of  "sorrow"  or  "regret."  And 
we  would  do  this  now  in  the  interest  of  truth, 
in  the  interest  of  genuine  Christianity,  in  the 
interest  of  an  age  which  does  not  fear  to  face 
a  fact,  whatever  be  the  consequences. 

As  we  have  said  before,  so  we  say  again : 
148 


The  True  Interpretation. 


we  do  not  believe  in  the  process  of  "  trans- 
figuration," when  it  is  to  be  attempted  upon 
a  word  of  such  a  character,  and  containing  in 
itself  such  a  latent  dogmatic  force,  as  "  re- 
pentance" The  only  safety  is  in  letting  it, 
dogmatically,  alone,  in  dropping  it,  dogmatic- 
ally, out,  and  in  retaining  it  only  in  its  pop- 
ular and  strictly  Scriptural  sense — a  regret  for 
something  that  is  past,  and  a  regret  that,  in 
a  matter  of  wrong-doing,  may  deepen  into  a 
"  godly  sorrow  " ;  and  this  "  regret "  we  would 
always  call  "repent.'"  All  this  we  say  be- 
cause we  believe  that,  so  long  as  the  word  is 
used  for  Merdroia,  the  characteristic  key-note 
of  Christianity  will  give  not  only  an  uncertain, 
but  a  radically  reversing,  as  well  as  a  mis- 
leading, sound :  the  world  will  lose  the  orig- 
inal and  innermost,  the  initial  and  guiding 
principle  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  regard  to  the  instances  mentioned  by 
Bishop  Westcott  of  the  successful  transfigure- 
ment  of  "  faith  "  and  "  grace,"  despite  their 
Latin  perversion,  it  seems  to  us  that  they 
are  hardly  a  parallel.  Only  theologians  are 
familiar  with  any  ancient  association  of  those 
words  which  would  despoil  them  now  of  their 
149 


The  Eclipse  of  Metdnoia  by  P&nitentia. 

depth  and  beauty.  They  have  become  thor- 
oughly English.  They  have  no  harsh  historic 
physiognomy  to  soften  away.  In  neither  of 
them  are  we  obliged  to  lift  off  a  Latin  cowl  in 
order  to  bare  a  Greek  brow.  The  deep  heart 
of  their  Greek  originals  is  easily  to  be  seen  in 
the  countenance  of  both. 

And  now  we  must  add,  in  view  of  the  kind 
suggestion  that  in  the  work  of  "transfiguring  " 
repentance,  our  essay  may  be  "of  eminent 
service,"  that  we  could  look  upon  it  with  but 
little  satisfaction  if  we  thought  that,  after  all, 
we  had  only  succeeded  in  expounding  the 
force  of  "repentance  "  in  a  way  that  reconciled 
the  preacher  and  scholar  the  more  to  the  old 
rendering,  and  had  only  helped,  therefore, 
to  confirm  the  esoteric  position  in  which  the 
word  at  present  stands,  namely,  a  position 
under  which  those  who  are  learned  may  have 
one  consciousness  in  reading  it  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  those  who  are  not  learned, 
another. 

In  conclusion  let  us  express  again  the  im- 
mense satisfaction  that  we  have  taken  in  the 
remarkable  definition  of  Merdvoia  by  this  dis- 
150 


The  True  Interpretation. 


tinguished  scholar  and  theologian,  an  eminent 
authority  in  Greek  and  a  master  in  English, 
of  world-wide  fame.  We  place  it  with  pride 
beside  those  of  De  Quincey  and  Matthew 
Arnold,  as  the  expression  of  a  spiritual  per- 
ception and  experience  which  combines  the 
force  of  both: 

Meravom  describes  Characteristically  in  the 
Language  of  the  Neiu  Testament,  a  General 
Change  of  Mind,  which  Becomes  in  its  Full- 
est Development  an  Intellectual  and  Moral 
Regeneration." 


ASSENTING   WITNESSES. 

THE  following  letters — extracts  for  the 
most  part — were  written  without  a  thought 
of  publication.  They  are  simple,  unstudied, 
and  spontaneous  expressions  of  interest  in 
the  subject.  They  all  refer,  of  course,  to 
the  first  essay,  and  have  been  selected  out  of 
a  large  number  (received  from  time  to  time 
since  its  publication)  because  of  their  sug- 
gestiveness,  the  weightiness  of  their  indorse- 
ment, and  their  contributary  character,  in  one 
way  or  another,  to  the  substance  of  the  essay 
itself. 

It  was  at  first  designed,  when  the  reissue 
of  the  essay  was  thought  of,  to  make  each 
of  them  the  base  of  a  sort  of  excursus,  of 
greater  or  less  length — the  whole  group  of 
which,  taken  together,  leading  out  into  vari- 
ous aspects  of  the  subject,  and  developing  its 
Scriptural  and  theological,  as  well  as  its  philo- 
sophical and  practical  relations  and  bearings. 
152 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


The  material  for  all  this  has,  however,  been 
laid  aside,  under  an  exigency  which  has  made 
it  undesirable  for  the  present  reprint,  and  the 
plan  has  only  been  carried  out  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  first  of  the  letters.  (See  the 
second  essay.)  There  were  several  others  of 
striking  character  which  have  consequently 
been  omitted,  as  the  field  of  thought  they 
opened  required  especial  consideration  in 
order  to  elicit  their  true  value. 


From  the  Rt.  Rev.  Brooke  Foss  Westcott, 
D.D.,  U.C.L.,  Bishop  of  Durham,  late  Canon 
of  Westminster,  and  Regius  Professor  of  Di- 
vinity, Cambridge  ;  a  member  of  the  English 
New  Testament  Company  of  the  Revisers : 

"  There  was  a  reference  to  your  essay  in  a  paper 
on  the  Revised  Version,  in  the  '  Expositor.'  I  have 
not  a  copy  of  the  magazine  at  hand,  but  I  think  it 
was  in  the  paper  which  appeared  in  August. 

"  I  intended  to  say  that  you  had  brought  out  with 
singular  power  and  truth  the  meaning  of  Merdvoia, 
while  I  could  not  see  that  the  translation  could  be 
modified. 

"The  preacher  and  the  scholar  must  transfigure 
'$3 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


'  repentance,*  even  as  '  fides  ^  and  'gratia'1  have  been 
transfigured.  In  this  work  your  essay  will,  I  trust, 
be  of  eminent  service. 

"  B.  F.  WESTCOTT." 

II. 

From  the  Rev.  Alexander  Roberts,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Humanity  in  the  University  of 
St.  Andrews,  a  member  of  the  English  New 
Testament  Company  of  the  Revisers,  and 
author  of  the  "  Companion  to  the  Revised 
Version  of  the  New  Testament,  Explaining 
the  Reasons  for  the  Changes  Made  in  the 
Authorized  Version."  This  handbook  ac- 
companied the  issue  of  the  Revised  Version 
in  May,  1881. 

"  I  have  read  with  much  interest  your  thoughtful 
and  valuable  paper  on  '  Metanoia. ' 

"  The  expression  '  repentance,'1  though  plainly  in- 
adequate as  a  translation  of  it,  has  so  rooted  itself  in 
our  language  that  it  seems  almost  impossible  to  get 
rid  of  it. 

"  However,  we  have  manifestly  entered  on  an 
epoch  of  revision,  and  I  trust  you  will  bring  your 
suggestions  under  the  notice  of  anybody  that  may  be 
appointed,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  provide  an  Eng- 
lish version  of  the  New  Testament  which  may  meet 
with  general  acceptance.  .  .  . 

"ALEXANDER  ROBERTS." 
154 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


From  the  same  at  a  later  date. 

"  I  hope  some  effectual  means  will  be  found  for 
bringing  your  original  and  striking  exposition  of 
Merdiwa  under  the  notice  of  scholars  in  this  country. 

"  I  shall  see  that  it  is  submitted  to  those  of  my 
colleagues  who  are  likely  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
subject. 

"ALEXANDER  ROBERTS." 


in. 


From  the  Rev.  Howard  Crosby,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  ex-Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
New  York,  a  member  of  the  American  New 
Testament  Company  of  the  Revisers. 

"  I  think  you  are  quite  right. 

"  I  have  always  taught  that  the  Metanoia  of  the 
Gospel  was  not  a  sorrow  for  sin,  but  an  abandon- 
ment of  sin. 

"  Its  classical  meaning  is  '  a  change  of  view  and 
plan,'  as  in  that  intensely  interesting  part  of  Thucyd- 
ides  where  the  Athenians  order  the  destruction  of 
the  Mityleneans,  and  then  on  the  next  day  repent. 
There  is  not  a  particle  of  mourning  over  sin  in  that. 

"  Of  course  when  one  repents  (fieravoeV)  from  sin 
there  will  be  a  godly  sorrow,  but  this  is  not  in  the 
word. 

"The  Metanoia  of  the  Jews  was,  as  you  say,  a 
change  of  view  (and  plan)  from  the  pronoian  condi- 
'55 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


tion.  Those  at  Pentecost  thus  repented,  although, 
doubtless,  the  majority  of  them  were  truly  godly 
men  before. 

"HOWARD  CROSBY." 


IV. 

From  the  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Professor  of  Sacred  Literature  in  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  President 
of  the  American  Revision  Committee,  author 
of  "  A  Companion  to  the  Greek  Testament 
and  the  English  Version,"  etc. 

"  Many  thanks  to  you  for  your  able,  excellent,  and 
truthful  article  on  the  meaning  of  Merdvota,  which 
has  my  cordial  approval. 

"  Conservatism  prevented  a  change,  and  the  diffi- 
culty of  substituting  a  precise  equivalent  in  one  word. 
"  PHILIP  SCHAFF." 

v. 

From  the  Very  Rev.  E.  H.  Plumptre,  D.D., 
Dean  of  Wells,  a  member  of  the  English  Old 
Testament  Company. 

"  Pray  accept  my  best  thanks  for  your  very  sug- 
gestive paper. 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you  as  to  the  inadequacy  of 
the  accepted  rendering  of  Merdvoia,  but  I  do  not  see 
any  way  to  a  better  one  as  yet. 
156 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


'  '  Resipiscence '  was  an  attempt,  but  it  proved 
abortive. 

"  '  Change  of  mind '  or  '  principles  '  or  '  heart '  is 
cumbrous,  and  leaves  the  nature  of  the  change  unde- 
fined. 

"  E.  H.  PLUMPTRE." 


VI. 


From  the  Rev.  Edward  White,  author  of 
"  Life  in  Christ,"  "  Mystery  of  Growth,"  etc. 

"  LONDON,  1892. 

"  Some  one  has  sent  me  a  copy  of  your  tract  on 
Mmzvom,  but  the  sender  has  remained  anonymous. 

"  I  thank  the  sender  anyway — and  the  author. 

"  The  argument  has  been  familiar  to  me  for  fifty 
years,  and  I  have  always  regarded  it  as  unanswer- 
able and  most  important. 

"  I  learned  its  nature  and  irresistible  force  in  early 
life  by  reading  Dr.  George  Campbell's  '  Preliminary 
Dissertations  on  the  Gospels  '  (Principal  of  Marischal 
College,  Aberdeen,  Scotland)  (Preliminary  Disserta- 
tion No.  VI.),  where  a  very  precise,  full,  and  decisive 
argument,  both  critical  and  spiritual,  fixes  the  prac- 
tical sense  of  Merdvowz  as  you  have  done. 

"  There  are  some  valuable  points  brought  out  by 
Principal  Campbell,  which  I  think  will  interest  you, 
in  addition  to  your  own. 

"  No  doubt  Dr.  Campbell's  '  Dissertations  '  are  to 
be  seen  in  some  of  your  theological  libraries.  It  is 
157 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


a  golden  book,  almost  forgotten  in  the  crowd  of  mod- 
ern works. 

"  I  trust  that  your  endeavors  will  result  in  some 
wholesome  teaching  on  the  subject  of  the  true  Merd- 
voia  in  the  United  States. 

"  EDWARD  WHITE, 

"Author  of  'Life  in  ChristS  " 

VII. 

From  the  Rev.  Alexander  V.  G.  Allen, 
D.D.,  Professor  in  the  Episcopal  Theological 
School,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  author  of  "The 
Continuity  of  Christian  Thought:  A  Study 
of  Modern  Theology  in  the  Light  of  its 
History,"  etc. 


"  I  have  read  your  paper  on  the  '  Metanoia,'  and 
am  greatly  delighted  with  it. 

"  The  thought  of  it  goes  deep  down  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  Christian  revelation,  and  when  the  full 
meaning  of  your  position  is  taken,  one  can  see  that 
it  is  the  hinge  upon  which  a  truer  and  larger  concep- 
tion of  Christianity  must  turn. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  been  thinking  in  the 
same  direction. 

"  You  have  brought  out  the  importance  of  the  fact 
that  the  new  revelation  found  its  first  expression  in 
the  Greek  language ;  and  to  that  language  we  must 
turn,  if  we  are  to  get  the  fresh  original  idea  in  the 
mind  of  its  first  disciples. 

158 


Assenting  Witnesses, 


"  When  the  New  Testament  was  translated  in 
Latin  there  came  a  profound  misapprehension  of  its 
central  positions.  '  Metanoia '  is  one  word.  So  an- 
other is  '  grace,'  and  another  is  '  justification ' — words 
which  fall  far  short  as  Latin  equivalents  for  the  orig- 
inal Greek. 

"  I  have  begun  later  than  you  in  taking  up  the 
same  issue;  i.e.,  with  the  Greek  fathers  as  the  best 
interpreters  of  Christianity,  because  they  were  under 
the  influence  of  that  culture  which  was  divinely  ap- 
pointed to  create  a  language  for  the  new  order. 

"  The  Latins  disowned  philosophy  and  human 
culture.  They  were  inclined,  like  true  Romans,  to 
put  all  the  mischief  in  the  will ;  heresy  was  a  vicious 
wilfulness ;  and  the  trouble  with  the  will  was  a  weak- 
ness or  impotence  toward  right,  which  had  been  in- 
herited from  Adam.  This  vicious  direction  of  the 
will  could  only  be  overcome  by  omnipotent  power 
bearing  down  all  finite  opposition,  and  this  power 
which  acts  upon  the  will  (grace)  is  conveyed  through 
outward  channels. 

"  That  was  the  substance  of  Augustinianism  and 
of  Latin  Christianity.  It  disowned  the  intellect  as 
having  any  vital  connection  with  the  regenerated 
life. 

"  With  the  Greeks  it  was  knowledge,  which  must 
overcome  the  ignorance  of  man ;  but  this  knowledge 
carried  with  it  the  whole  nature,  as  you  have  shown. 

' '  The  essay  is  a  beautiful,  clear,  and  original  state- 
ment of  a  great  issue. 

"A.  V.  G.  ALLEN." 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


VIII. 

From  the  Rev.  J.  F.  Garrison,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Divinity 
School,  Philadelphia. 

"  I  hope  the  old  saw,  '  Better  late  than  never,'  will 
hold  good  in  my  acknowledgment,  at  this  late  day,  of 
the  interest  and  value  of  your  article  on  '  Metanoia.' 

"  I  have  had  my  pen  in  hand  many  times  to  do  it, 
but  there  was  so  much  I  wished  to  say  about  it  that 
each  time  I  waited  for  a  '  more  convenient  season,' 
until  now,  in  utter  despair  of  finding  leisure  for  this, 
I  cannot  refrain  longer  to  tell  you  how  profoundly 
important  I  feel  the  points  you  make  to  be. 

"  I  have  been  so  deeply  impressed  with  them  for 
twenty  years  that  I  scarcely  or  never  use  the  word 
'  repent'1  in  any  of  its  Bible  references  without  paus- 
ing to  reiterate  the  true  meaning  of  the  mental  and 
spiritual  process  implied  in  the  Metanoia. 

"  And  I  am  sure  that  many  of  our  most  disastrous 
failures  in  commending  Christianity  to  unbelieving 
minds— especially  minds  of  a  manly  character — have 
their  cause  just  here. 

"  You  have  thought  so  much  on  the  bearings  of 
the  idea  that  I  need  not  tell  you  how  or  why. 

"  What  I  wanted,  however,  especially  to  enlarge 
upon  were  certain  of  the  collateral  relations  of  the 
word,  and  its  psychological  connections,  which  I  have 
felt  to  be  at  the  same  time  confirmations  of  your  views 
and  expressions  of  its  great  meaning. 
160 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


"  I  can  only  hint  at  them,  as  it  has  been  my  in- 
ability to  write  more  fully  which  has  let  me  hitherto, 
and  I  doubt  not  but  they  have  occurred  to  you. 

"  I.  One  of  these  is  the  analogy  of  the  use  of  the 
word  in  the  Greek  of  the  LXX.,  wherein  very  often 
the  passages  rendered  '  repent,'1  etc.,  in  the  Author- 
ized Version  are  given  in  the  Septuagint  by  MrravoeZv, 
etc.,  with  a  most  decided  advantage  to  the  clearness, 
consistency,  and  satisfactoriness  of  the  passage. 

"  2.  The  remarkable  significance  of  the  word  Noi)f 
and  all  its  derivatives  in  the  philosophic  language  of 
that  age,  as  we  learn  this  from  the  Greek,  especially 
the  Alexandrian,  writers.  And  I  more  and  more  be- 
lieve that  the  language  of  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament  had  much  in  common  with  this. 

"  I  cannot  pause  even  to  outline  my  grounds  for 
this,  but  they  are  so  strong  to  my  mind  that  if  I  were 
in  the  middle  instead  of  near  the  end  of  my  mental  life- 
work  I  would  make  it  the  theme  of  an  elaborate  volume. 

' '  Now,  in  all  the  prevalent  thought  of  that  time, 
'  thought '  (vovf  as  its  reality)  and  '  being '  were  only 
two  sides  of  one  and  the  same  essence.  With  them 
the  Real  was  not,  as  with  us,  the  Material,  but  the 
Noetic.  What  on  the  side  of  consciousness  and  ac- 
tual verity  was  votiv  (thought),  on  its  side  of  real  ex- 
istence was  elvai.  To  think  was  '  to  be,'  and  '  to  be ' 
was  essentially  thought.  The  Spiritual  was  the  Real, 
and  the  only  Real  was  the  Spiritual. 

"  (And  herein  lies  the  essence  of  the  endless  dis- 
cussion  on   the  Real  Presence.     The  hard-headed 
Latin  could  never  see  that  anything  was  Real  that  he 
could  not  represent  as  quasi  Material. ) 
161 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


"  Now,  with  this  conception  of  voeZv,  go  back  to 
Metanoia,  and  we  have  the  complete  expression  and 
magnificent  sweep  of  the  full  thought.  In  changing 
the  votiv  of  the  man  he  has  become  changed  in  the 
very  essence  of  his  Etvai ;  '  all  things  have  become 
new.' 

"  I  need  not  evolve  the  thought  further.  It  lies 
at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  Alexandrian,  or  rather 
of  the  whole  philosophic,  thought  of  that  age,  and  in 
Plotinus  is  developed  to  the  dialectic  system  with 
which  he  hoped  to  rival  Christianity,  but  which,  by 
its  one-sided  character,  made  it  only  a  sublime  dream 
for  the  few  instead  of  a  divine  life  for  the  many. 

"3.  As  a  relique  of  my  old  medical  life.  Insanity 
is  not,  as  I  think,  an  error  of  reasoning.  Who  rea- 
sons so  inexorably  as  an  insane  man?  '  I  am — my 
mind  (vovf)  tells  me — a  king.  Therefore  I  can  and 
will  do  as  a  king.'  And  all  he  does  follows  on  strict- 
est reasoning  from  his  VOEIV.  Change  his  essential 
accepted  thought — self — and  at  once  he  '  is  '  a  differ- 
ent man.  As  he  '  thought '  in  his  essential  self,  so 
he  '  was.'  His  Mer&voia  at  once  changes  his  entire 
'  being.' 

"  I  have  often  presented  this  as  a  terrible  analogy 
to  the  condition  of  man  as  a  sinner.  By  nature  he  ac- 
cepts as  the  essential  fact  of  his  being,  in  his  thought, 
'  this  world,  self,  sin,  as  all-real,  all-sufficient.'  Christ 
comes  and  says,  '  Your  whole  being  and  thought 
are  wrong.  MeravoeZre :  let  your  whole  being  and 
thought  turn  from  this.  It  is  a  lie,  and  you  and  your 
life,  based  on  it,  a  delusion ;  for  there  is  a  kingdom 
of  the  heavens  which  is  THE  truth,'  etc. 
162 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


"  Here,  again,  I  only  put  a  finger-mark;  but  the 
meaning  of  the  whole  is,  I  thank  you  very  heartily 
for  your  admirable  and  needed  paper. 

"J.  F.  GARRISON." 


IX. 


From  the  Rev.  Elisha  Mulford,  LL.D., 
author  of  "The  Republic  of  God,"  "The 
Nation,"  etc. 

"  The  essay  has  very  great  value.  It  gives  the 
view  of  the  term  which  I  have  long  held. 

"  This  is  the  one  term  which  connects  most  clearly 
the  errand  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  with  the  message 
of  the  Gospel. 

"  It  has  more  direct  and  full  significance  than  those 
to  which  I  note  a  reference  in  Hausrath's  '  Times  of 
Jesus,'  tr.,  ii.,  p.  120. 

"The  grammarians  have  always  underrated  De 
Quincey. 

"ELISHA  MULFORD." 

x. 

From  the  Rev.  Edward  T.  Bartlett,  D.D., 
Dean  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Divinity 
School,  Philadelphia. 

"  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  you  for  your  essay  on 
the  great  New  Testament  word. 
163 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


"  At  a  glance  I  saw  much  of  its  value,  but  now 
that  I  have  carefully  studied  it  I  think  it  wonderful 
and  of  permanent  worth  for  its  scholarship  and  its 
true  fervor,  the  like  of  which  in  combination  I  do 
not  remember  to  have  ever  seen. 

"  The  ability  with  which  you  present  your  great 
subject  and  marshal  your  grand  argument  seems  to 
me  absolutely  perfect,  and  should  make  this  essay 
one  that  will  be  the  standard  monograph  on  the  sub- 
ject. 

"  If  I  could  wish  for  any  addition  to  your  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  it  would  be  as  to  the  fuller  de- 
velopment of  the  truth  that  the  change  of  the  mind 
itself  may  precede  and  lead  to  a  change  of  circum- 
stance— the  truth  which  Dr.  Bushnell,  e.g.,  brings 
out  in  those  two  tremendous  sermons,  '  The  Bad 
Consciousness1  Taken  Away,'  and  'The  Bad  Mind 
Makes  a  Bad  Element,'  in  his  '  Christ  and  His  Sal- 
vation. ' 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  say  this,  but  will  venture  to  let 
it  go,  almost  sure,  though,  that  upon  further  study 
of  your  essay,  which  I  intend  to  make,  I  shall  find 
that  you  have  given  that  truth  all  the  emphasis  it 
needed,  and  that  I  have  been  mistaken. 

"Again  I  thank  you  for  the  keen  pleasure  you 
have  afforded  me  in  your  beautiful  paper. 

"EDWARD  T.  BARTLETT." 

From  the  same  at  a  recent  date. 

"  I  am  glad  to  know  that  a  new  edition  of  '  Me- 
tanoia '  is  to  be  given  us.     Strong  evidence  that  the 
164 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


view  you  take  has  permanently  impressed  thoughtful 
men  as  one  of  deep  value  and  importance  has  been 
meeting  me  ever  and  anon  for  years. 

"  My  suggestion  when  I  saw  you  in  Boston  was 
to  this  effect:  that  you  should  go  straight  through 
the  New  Testament  and  carefully  work  out  each  pas- 
sage where  the  word  occurs,  or  its  cognates,  and  show 
how  the  real  meaning  can  be  put  into  good  smooth 
English  expression.  Some  work  I  am  doing  has  led 
me  to  study  the  matter  closely  and  to  try  to  do  this 
very  thing.  ...  It  would  not  take  much  space.  An 
appendix  of  a  few  pages  would  surely  be  enough. 
Such  a  thing  would  be  most  timely.  I  beg  you  to 
do  it. 

"EDWARD  T.  BARTLETT." 


XI. 

From  the  Rev.  Benjamin  Franklin,  D.D., 
author  of  "The  Creed  and  Modern  Thought." 

"  May  I  venture  to  express  the  great  pleasure  and 
sense  of  mental  benefit  with  which  I  have  read  your 
article  in  the  July  number  of  the  '  American  Church 
Review '? 

"  You  have  undoubtedly  made  an  intrinsic  contri- 
bution to  the  theology  of  the  age,  and  given  an  illus- 
tration of  what  many  have  thought  and  some  have 
said,  viz. ,  that  '  Catholic  theology  '  is  as  much  alive 
in  this  age,  and  as  well  adapted  to  current  thought, 
as  it  ever  has  been. 

"  The  article,  while  learned  and  able,  of  course, 
165 


Assenting  Witnesses. 


is  abreast  of  the  age,  and  takes  that  humanly  sympa- 
thetic yet  distinctively  Christian  stand  which  primi- 
tive Christianity  occupied. 

"  As  a  work  emanating  from  the  theological  school 
to  which  you  are  popularly  assigned,  it  of  course 
looks  at  the  truth  from  its  own  point  of  view. 

"  It  does  so  admirably,  however,  and  will,  I  hope, 
so  permeate  the  mind  of  preachers  that  the  Gospel, 
on  its  human  side,  may  be  better  preached,  and  men 
induced  to  recognize  and  develop,  in  mind  and  heart, 
their  original  godlikeness. 

"  B.  FRANKLIN." 


XII. 

From  the  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D., 
Bishop  of  Massachusetts. 

"  It  is  full  of  inspiration. 

"  It  makes  one  think  of  Christian  faith  as  positive 
and  constructive,  and  not  merely  destructive  and 
remedial. 

"  It  makes  the  work  of  Christ  seem  worthy  of 

Christ. 

"  PHILLIPS  BROOKS." 


1 66 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

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